Fascinatingly good, if only because I prepared for the worst...

Rating: 7/10 (9 June 2012)

So, I grew up with the Alien films. Granted I was an infant when Aliens (1986) came out, but the films really became a big part of my adolescence thanks to the action figures being marketed for kids - which could NOT have prepared me for the adult nature of the films, obviously.
That said, you'd think I'd be asking for 2 hours of my life back. I'm not. And there's much to be said for the negative items, I freely admit it. Seriously, I thought Scott was better than this, to have allowed certain absurdities to remain in the story/script. But I steeled myself - I read many reviews on this very IMDb page that didn't contain spoilers, and hyped myself down.
That being the case, I was happy with what I walked into. For any reviewers that may be applicable; Thanks. Oh, and sorry that someone didn't prepare you the same as you did for me. That'd be a bummer.
Having whittled out a large introduction for this review, I won't list everything to its finer detail. I will say, in earnest, that perhaps the most detrimental things to this film were certain characters: Yes, believe everyone when they say certain scientists were terribly absent of logic and self-preserving instinct. Not to mention one that would rather rouse up a fuss than do anything pertaining to his field of study. Even beyond certain silly characters, the entire cast didn't use much foresight for the realm of contaminants - my girlfriend made the point that the Alien (1979) cast were far more cautious, and they amounted to not much more than interstellar tow-truck drivers! See, many sci-fi films that require you to suspend disbelieve, require so because their science is a bit wacky. Here, you need to suspend your disbelieve that humans on an alien planet would dare behave so recklessly.
Other than that, there's little else to gripe about. Accepting that this film has (almost) entirely removed itself from the storyline of the Alien films, virtually all of the actual content was a delight for me. To have theorized for years that the Aliens were some sort of biotech weapon, and to see what these Engineers (formerly "Space Jockies") were actually tinkering around with at some point in time, was fantastic. The very gravity of the forces at play kept me tense throughout the movie, and you'll never lose sense of how great the scope is because of the sweeping visuals of space and landscapes.
If anything negative can be said about the visuals, it's that it might be a bit overstimulating.
Script, characters and doodads aside, the story leaves with something to be desired. Namely a sequel, which was perhaps highly purposeful for the filmmakers. Much remains to be seen and answered - much more so than before! And here's a fan of the original franchise that is very eager to see those questions get answered (or at least touched upon) in another movie.