Astonishing animations with little story

Rating: 4/10 (15 August 2013)

I'm giving it away right at the beginning: The animations and visual effects are astonishing. The story is played out weakly.
The topic of the creation and the creator(s) of human life is obviously deeply philosophic and one of the oldest and most enduring questions of all times. I dare to say that this has been abused as a very thin plot layer beneath the beautiful and mind-blowing pictures we see in this movie.
The characters are not developed, they are actually not even portrayed. We find very rare references to the intentions and motivations of a few of the main characters for joining this mission. We see a ridiculously insipid story of the childhood of Dr. Shaw, another character lets us know that his participation in the journey is only for money.
Story, plot, anyone? I am not talking about underlying intentions and interpretation, I am referring to the superficial action: It is confusing and seems disconnected. Examples? 1) Dr. Shaw learns that she is pregnant with an alien baby. She walks to a surgery machine, lets it remove the "foreign matter", then the machine stitches up her stomach, she kills the thing by suffocating it (I assume) and walks away. Apart from occasional groaning we see and learn nothing more about this. 2) On the planet which they are visiting, they see recorded holographic creatures running around in a cave. There is not a single expression of surprise, wonder or any emotion shown. Why this is, how this was triggered, no reflection, nothing.
I simply cannot believe this movie. It is so hollow that I almost felt an urge to watch "Tree of life" in order to redeem myself from this pseudo-philosophical experience.