Ridley Scott's origins

Rating: 9/10 (9 June 2012)

When a film involves a group of astronauts stranded on a distant planet, lost connection to Earth and are up against aliens, they are probably trying (and probably failing) to copy this film. Ridley Scott was a fairly unknown director at the time but now he is up there as one of the best thanks to this film.
From the get go, it is intense without any dialogue, people or anything really. Just steady shots of machinery and corridors in complete silence but it still has a fear essence to it. The plot is fairly simple. A group of people in a commercial towing spaceship get a distress call form a planet and a loop hole in their contract states that they have to go and investigate; on the planet, they find an alien type body and let chaos ensue.
The first act is fairly slow which can become of distaste to some viewers who want to see action and horror. I personally enjoyed the slowness because it is a slow build up to what is going to be a tense forty five minutes. Plus, the slowness of the film allows us to care for the characters because classic horror film scenario: people die. We know this and because of that, we do not care for the characters but in this film, when their eating at the dinning table with their banter and natural conversations, we really care for them.
The acting is superb from everyone so there is not time where you cringe at a line delivered poorly or an action looking robotic. But the real star of the film is Ridley Scott. The directing is something special and unique from the slow, steady shots to an intense shaky cam shot. It flips from one to another flawlessly. I recommend everyone to watch this film but I must warn you, if you hate slow films, give this a chance and it might convert you or just leave it and watch Transformers.