After Cameron got his grubby paws on the Alien series and bled it of all
intelligence, Davey Fincher comes along and, as only Fincher could,
saves the shit out of
it. Alien is, on most levels, a horror movie, and as all horror movies,
faces a serious problem in serializing: human fear is, primarily, fear
of the unknown.
After too many viewings the audience is more familiar with the monster than
with the protagonists, aligning their sympathies accordingly; the stab
at horror
becomes shlock. Granted, like the über-schlock Evil Dead triad, Alien
maintains the same protag throughout, but the problem still remains: it just
ain't scary anymore. Enter Fincher, who shifts Alien from the blah blah
blah dead, blah blah blah gun Cameron had turned it into into something
atmospheric; watching this movie you feel cold. Decidely the most
filmic of the series, if still second to the first,
regrettably sets a precedent to be followed
in the baroque atmospherism of the plotless Alien 4, blah blah blah, never send
a Frenchman to do an Oregonite's work, blah blah blah, Frenchman blah blah blah.
blah blah.