Alien prequel is The Phantom Metheus

Rating: 5/10 (30 May 2012)

OK, that's perhaps a little unfair. But relatively accurate when you compare Scott's original hard nosed masterpiece to this Saturday afternoon pseudo intellectual space bonanza. It talks about man's origins and the afterlife but only manages to give us bad tempered marble men and scary squids.
Fassbender's solitary scenes at the beginning are by far the film's best as his android character tends to the upkeep of the ship while the rest of the crew are in cryogenic suspension. He watches films and bleaches his hair. He perfects cycling while playing basketball and reads the dreams of his crew members. His performance (more than the writing of him) is the single redeeming element of an otherwise mediocre production.
The rest of the cast are given little to do with Theron, Katie Dickie et al woefully underused. Swedish born Rapace (original Dragon Tattoo trilogy) proves once again she's got the goods but her on-screen love interest, the blandly handsome Logan Marshall Green, is totally outclassed by her and they have zero chemistry.
It has some moments of decent tension and gross out horror, but where these things in the original Alien were tempered by silence and sparse naturalistic dialogue. Here the dialogue is occasionally daft, often used to smooth over poor plotting and pacing is not nearly so well judged. The result is a film that neither fully convinces as horror nor fulfills it's promise as a return to 'proper' sci-fi. For all the fanfare about this being Scott's return to the genre this more carries the signature of those who made the recent Star Trek movie and the series Lost. While no meagre qualifications, they seem odd choices for an Alien prequel and the film only confirms it.
For all the visual bells and whistles, Sir Ridley has taken his own cinematic gold and sadly spun straw. Unlike Lucas, he can be forgiven for this middling attempt at a prequel but if this is a sign of things to come he'd do well to leave Blade Runner sequel-less.