Flashes of brilliance, but falls short at times

Rating: 6/10 (6 April 2018)

Look, there's a minimum standard of brilliance to be expected from Ridley Scott. The good: Panoramic/breathtaking landscape shots, the overall pacing of the film, and Fassbender x2. The 15-20 minute sequence from initial crew ingestion of the alien spores through to neomorph "births" is cinematic genius. Scott conveys absolute mastery of pacing, grit, terror and suspense. The bad: alien fans inaugurated into the original mythos via Alien/Aliens will need to quickly accept and adapt to a new mythos: these Aliens are not the old Aliens of 70's/80's lore. At times, we're left with more questions than answers: how is it that these Aliens reach adulthood in less than a few hours when the original film seemed to suggest a much longer birth through adulthood period? The ugly: Too much CGI! The Neomorph scenes post birth just seem rushed, and the creatures obscured. Orams's death/birth of the protomorph scene is just silly. Overall, a fun waste of 2 hrs.