Monday 27 October 2014

Alien review


Alien review

In space no one can watch this.

The story starts off in space with a cargo vessel receiving a distress signal. The crew decided to see if they can help them out. They landed on an unknown planet, there they find a ship, inside they find a room with thousands of mysterious eggs, one of the crew members gets caught by the alien that hatched inside where it wraps around his face. The crew brought him on board trying everything they can to remove it but nothing they did succeeded. Later they find out that the hatched creature died and released the crew member's face. They decided to talk about it while happily eating around the table where suddenly an alien burst out of his stomach and escapes. One by one the crew members were hunt down and killed until a women, Ripley, decides to stop the alien by activating a self-distrust sequence on the ship. She managed to survive by hopping into an escape pod and float away only to notice that the alien was aboard on the ship. Ripley quickly comes up with a plan to get rid of the alien once and for all. She quickly straps herself onto a seat and releases the door which sucked out the alien, ending the story.

The film does brilliantly by having the story quick and simple to understand but sadly not unique however that's not what makes this film interesting. It's the characters that treats each other like family that makes this film interesting. The characters are by no means interesting on their own but as one it feels like you are watching a strong bond between them, which you can consider that its own character. Interestingly they did change the idea of women in movies by having Ripley pass the bechdel test (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test) by having Ripley able to talk to another female without talking about guys she likes and has a few decent tough scenes, even though that during the end of the film where you see Ripley in her underwear you can call it fan-service but I see it as the character is finally able to relax from what has been happened. Even IF people consider it fan-service for the men, I personally don't see it and that could because she is not to my liking.

The bad points is that the jump scares are way too predictable and done way too much almost you know what’s going to happen. For example: when the captain was climbing down the air vent you knew that the alien was going to be in the same spot he was heading and even the cat runs really fast scenes where you think it might be an alien and it turns out it’s the cat, which for some reason you can easily predict which one is which.

Overall this movie gets an 8/10. Really good and easy to understand and despite being cliché and obvious. It’s mainly about the characters and that is what makes this film brilliant, you end up caring for their survival but that’s because they show ordinary scenes together (dinner, lunch, chatting) which makes them feel more alive. The background and sound effects are amazing and joyful to watch, which made the scenes look more appealing.

2 comments:

dreason479 said...

Hi Jacky.
This is a good thorough review. The one thing that I would say is that when you say that the jump scares are predictable, like when the cat runs out the locker and when the Alien gets Dallas when he's in the air vents, the audience back then wouldn't be used to jump scares like that. We are now because most horror films since are full of them, so that is why they are predictable as we are used to them now.
So, what I would say is may be next time think review the film as someone back then...If that makes sense.

Good review though. Keep it up. :)

Jackie said...

Hi Jacky, Yes I agree with what Dan has said - you need to look at the film with the ayes of the audience of the time it was made. This is partially the reason you are watching these 'old' films; to give you an insight into where todays films get their influences from.

On a technical note - this review does not have any quotes to support it at all... :( You must make sure that you have at least 3 quotes, and that they are used to underpin your discussion. Also be careful of your spelling - you say at one point 'self-distrust' when I think you mean 'self destruct' ? Always proofread your work before posting, or get someone to look through it for you :)