A spaceship has been discovered under the ice in Antarctica,
and a body of whatever was on board has also been found. The team are excited
at being the first people to discover aliens but it all goes to hell when the
alien they thought was dead breaks free and attacks them.
The alien can imitate its victims, so it copies their cells
and hides inside. That is pretty excellent, I’m sure we can all agree. This should
have led to such a high level of suspicion and paranoia but they don’t really
make use of it well. There is the one scene when they’re all scared about who
could be a copy but that’s it, it’s just the one scene and then it’s back to
fighting. I think what might’ve made the film more interesting would be if they
made it less about the action and more about the actual terror that would’ve
been felt in that situation. And I have
to agree with one of the commenters on the IMDb page, there were far too many
shots of the alien. It might have been better if we heard more noises and saw
shadows rather than actually see the alien itself because it takes away from
the fear, I think.
I’ve not seen the original film so I’m not sure if this
stands up well as a prequel, but I did enjoy it in itself. Kate (Mary Elizabeth
Winstead) was amazing and I think using her as the main character was
definitely a good choice. According to the IMDb trivia page, she is supposed to
have traits in common with Ripley from ‘Alien’ and I can see that. She’s strong
and smart and just an all round badass, really.
6/10
