...tentacles in his face and a nasty social faux pas at the dinner table...always thought that John Hurt was a strange one!
The say that in space no one can hear you scream...but they can hear you scream in your front room, movie theaters etc. and this movie has undoubtably caused a fair amount of screaming since its original release. Alien is the movie which spawned numerous sequels and set the first benchmark for others to follow. Its getting on a bit in years now but the effects, the tension and the general clastrophobic sense of futility still remains, and whilst if you have never seen this movie before you will probably recognise many of its elements from thsoe movies which have followed since, they have never met up with the power o the original. Its still well worth watching.
Alien is set aboard the space ship Nostromo. Its small crew is awakened from hypersleep by a distress beacon emminating from a planet which they are cruising by - law dictates that they must investigate. However, on arrival on the planet they find that there is nothing there to be giving off the signal, but they do find a hug alien ship in side which are strange looking eggs - one of which bursts open releasing a slimy alien ganglion which attaches itself to John Hurt's face. He is not dead however, but appears to be being kept alive by the creature which although at first appears to be a parasite soon turns out to be otherwise. The crew of the ship are beseiged by an alien lifeform which is rapidly growing and becoming increasingly vicious...and they have little to fight back with, finding themselves caught like rats in a trap.
The one thing whch sets Alien apart from so many other similar movies is the sheer scrotum-tightening tension which oozes out of every frame. This is real edge-of-your-set stuff and when the shocks come they are so much more pronounced because of it. The special effects are great and the alien itself is one nasty beast - probably the toughest ever to be seen on the silver screen. acting isn't that great it has to be said and the sound quality is pretty awful for at least the first section, sounding like a home movie rather than a Hollywood production but then maybe that was to all add to the realism - it just annoyed me. It may be over 20 years old now but its still well worth checking out.
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Production Year: 2007 - Science Fiction - Director: Francis Lawrence - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Dash Mihok, Will Smith, Salli Richardson, Willow Smith
Excellant op, although as a girlie, I can't really say I found the film 'scrotum-tightening'. I did however want to reach for a large box of tissues and give that naughty aliens nose a good blow!
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Advantages: Looks great, mixes genres perfectly. DVD features excellent Disadvantages: Will not appeal to everyone, some special effects are not believable
gunmenoftheapocalypse 11.12.2003 (11.12.2003)
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Review of Alien (DVD)
Advantages: Excellent presentation of the film itself in terms of both image and sound; comprehensive photo gallery; interesting interview with James Cameron. Disadvantages: No Director’s Commentary; only one trailer included; no music audio options — essentially, this is not an extras-lite DVD, but it simply has nowhere near as much content as the Alien DVD it follows.