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Rating: I'm with my friends when I walk past the poster and associate the director's name (Scott) with the sci-fi genre, and I understand that what is about to start is not the first part of "Prometheus" but the useless and ridiculous embryo, complete with crappy 3D glasses, of “Alien”. 12 euros very well spent, almost like the twenty peanuts disbursed by Moratti to acquire the talent of a flop famously known as Vampeta. I spent the rest of the evening cursing myself, the guilty party for choosing the film, and Ridley Scott for the crap he produced. The next day, perhaps out of spite against the director, I felt the need to rinse my mouth with Alien with an s: James Cameron's one. One of those very rare cinematic cases where a sequel manages to rival the heights of a successful, inspired, and revolutionary first chapter that made history in a genre.
It would have been absurd and counterproductive to try to replicate the sci-fi horror movie and claustrophobic atmosphere of seven years prior. Cameron, who knows about not just box office but also sequels (Terminator II), conceived "Aliens" differently, realizing that the only possible way to continue the story on the same quality standards is to change genre. Thanks to a frantic pace, intensive use of special effects at the expense of tension, boastful lines, and extreme, almost comic-book-like characterizations, the work leans more towards spectacular action than a horror movie.
And it’s right to be so because by now we know the unsettling alien creatures from our worst nightmares, generated by the ingenious yet twisted mind of Swiss artist H.R. Giger. This visionary bastard, with his damned well-rendered creatures, robbed me of sleep for countless nights. But perhaps I was just too young when I stumbled upon "Alien" on TV. Personally, I've always thought that the terrifying and magnetic grip on the viewer is not so much due to the physical appearance, (they look like locust-spider blends with T-Rex heads on a two-year diet), but due to the not quite etiquette-friendly ways the species adopts to kill invaders (tearing them apart as if it were penetration) and their questionable reproductive and birthing techniques.
A horror doesn't make sense anymore because, like the viewers, the protagonists of the sequel have also been instructed by the sole survivor of the previous space odyssey, an even tougher Sigourney Weaver. They think they know what they are facing and are not generally emissaries of diplomacy, but more inclined towards war and nuclearization.
Instead of a claustrophobic spaceship, the setting initially expands to a vast colony on planet LV-426: 57 years later, in fact, the new business for Earth has become constructing planets. As in Ridley Scott's film, with a marked distinction between good and bad, there is a desire to accuse unscrupulous careerism at the risk of catastrophe, counterbalanced by an incorruptible heroine who will even manage to reclaim what was unjustly taken from her. Dark atmospheres, rainy and not at all reassuring scenes in external environments (Blade Runner) give the apparent illusion of increased spaces; it’s just an impression because progressively, the settings will narrow to lead to an ever-tightening physical contact (rooms, corridors, air ducts) between the two forms of life.
The odyssey begins when the marines, searching for possible survivors, are lured into the depths of the colony. It's a territory now completely engulfed by alien forms, and the scenography, (here the 27-year gap is felt) makes their descent seem almost like the forced intrusion of medicine into a body. It's interesting how the film ends, fundamentally a forced evacuation, almost to signify the end of the bond between the two forms of life.
It's an exceptional sequel, especially considering the change in direction, endowed with a frantic pace and able to balance laughter, tension, and rare moments of sweetness that suit an honest cast in which there’s room for few but well-defined and stereotyped characters.
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