Suspense-Filled Yet Overblown
Rating: 7 of 10 
James Cameron's approach to the 'Alien' series was much different than Scott's, and one does sometimes feel like being in Jurassic Park, judging from the amount of aliens that he has unleashed. The movie departs from the original concept in the most drastic way possible, thus including more easy scares but definitely decreasing the chill factor. This isn't anymore the simplistic and highly effective horror movie, Cameron has turned it into an action film with scares.
Nevertheless, as can be seen by the direction the series has taken from then on, these movies proved to be something like a playing field for entrepreneur directors, and each of these films is very different from the others in most aspects except the basic concept: the Alien and Ripley. Variations on a topic, built together to form a continuing story. Thus, as part of the series, Cameron's approach may seem justified, as a sequel, he distorts the concept. Subtlety substituted by grandezza.
But then he presents us Lance Henriksen, and this choice in some way fills the gap Cameron had created within the atmosphere. But let me spend some words on the music now. James Horner surely may write great music, but does he ever vary his musical themes? The score sounded much like 'Star Trek III', which - in turn - resembled that of 'Star Trek II', which - again - sounded very similar to 'Space Raiders'. Judging from the themes, I always expected some Klingons to show up. That's not really what I'd have in mind, wouldn't it be more appropriate to create a specific style for a specific movie?
January 29th, 1998 / March 15th, 2000
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