This is NOT an Alien film.

Rating: 1/10 (14 October 2012)

This film looks absolutely beautiful, that is all that is good about it. The acting, script, story, conception, basically everything else, is just terrible. On it's own this is still not a one star film but I really feel the overall score has to come down from its current above average 7.3.
A thousand other reviewers have asked all the questions that Ridley Scott didn't seem to notice. I'll try and address the ones that have largely been missed. Mainly the most glaring thing about the film IMO is why is every professional in the film especially incompetent in their chosen specialism when the miners on the Nostromo were better suited to things they'd never done before. -Why can't the captain 'fly worth a damn' and why doesn't he inform THE REST OF THE FREAKING CREW NOT ON THE BRIDGE when he's about to jam the ship into the alien one? He only warned one person and you literally see all the other unused escape pods! -Why are the archaeologists/palaeontologists whatever they are not even A LITTLE BIT INTERESTED IN THE HUGE FRICKIN MURAL? The first confirmation of alien life and exactly the sort of thing they specialise in! -WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GOD DAMNED 'BIOLOGIST'? Why was it the one who had his face burned off that became a zombie alien when the other guy was obviously impregnated according to any logic of the Alien universe? -Why did the mercenaries, who would all be ex military, have weapons that were both crappy and unsuitable but somehow far more advanced than those of marines nearly a century later? Every one of them could have had smart guns instead of bloody stun laser pistols. -Why has creationism become adopted by everyone on Earth so that even the 'biologist' (albeit the worst one in the world) refers to billions of years of evolution as '300 years of Darwinism'? -It seems obvious Theron is a replicant, at least it's strongly implied, but what is the point of implying it? She does nothing, there are far too many characters in the film and none are developed as they should be but she is definitely the most pointless. -Why did Wayland pretend he was dead? What did he possibly have to gain from that? Fair enough if he wanted to fool everyone back on Earth but why then just appear. The crew seemed as bored and unsurprised as the audience at this point. -Why does a super advanced alien race solve all its problems by punching them in the face? -WHY THE HELL DIDN'T WAYLAND JUST HAVE A CREW OF THE PERFECT BLOODY ROBOTS? HE OWNS THE COMPANY THAT MAKES THEM! HE COULD HAVE JUST SAT IN STASIS UNTIL THEY GOT BACK AND TOLD HIM WHETHER IT WAS WORTH GOING!!! -Why does Ridley Scott not go and watch Alien? Of everything that made that film so great, there is not the slightest part in this film. What is it about Aliens versus Predator he loved so much that he just wanted to make another AVP film on a huge budget.
If you loved Alien and Aliens as I did just try not to let this garbage bother you, it's not canon, it's too moronic to be canon, think of it as garbled corporate propaganda meant to discredit a previous head of Wayland corp. My theory is that the 'engineers' are not the space jockeys, they're about half the size and their physiology is totally different, they just imitate that ancient race's relics and have no more idea where they came from than we do. They can't control or contain the biological weapons they're playing with which shows they didn't invent them. No doubt they just discovered them on a crashed jockey ship and muddled around with them for a bit before wiping themselves out. Also the 'xenomorph' we see has nothing to do with the pure strain from Alien, it's just a stupid experiment based on the parasite that plagued the true jockeys and that's why there are five pointless varieties of largely unconnected alien in this film.
This film should end several careers, Scott and Lindelhoff or whatever he's called are as incompetent as the Laurel and Hardy scientists that get lost going in a straight line. If Scott does make a Bladerunner sequel then I won't watch it as I can't risk it poisoning that great film. How Lindelhopper got this gig I have no idea, he doesn't even appear to have the talent for decent fan fiction, he seems to have no idea how stories work.
God speed the death of the cinema if it's come to paying £10/$20 to sit through this execrable and garbage spewed out by talentless morons not good enough to get work on daytime soap operas. I tried watching it twice but it becomes dramatically worse with a second viewing, one of the worst sci-fi films ever made (still beats the star wars prequels though) I almost wish it wasn't so pretty so I could hate it more.