Enjoyable, fast paced, visually beautiful

Rating: 8/10 (3 June 2012)

I enjoyed the movie and recommend it to anyone interested in the Alien movies. It is just visually beautiful, particularly the scenes of space, the primordial earth and the alien world. The special effects are also impressive. The futuristic human and alien technology depicted is fascinating.
This movie transports us 80 years into the future, when space travel, human-like robotics, anti-gravity devices and automatic medical operation chambers are a reality.
Charlie and Elizabeth are two latter-day Erich von Danikens who have convinced Peter Weyland, trillionaire, of their theory that aliens not only have visited the earth but planted the genetic seed for mankind and then returned many times to explain this to later civilizations who integrated this revelation into their cultures. These scientists have even deduced the planet where these aliens came from.
Weyland is convinced this theory is true. (And indeed it is. We are shown it at the start of the film.) He mounts a space mission to this far-away system. He puts ice-queen Meredith in charge. It takes years for the ship to reach this planet, the crew in suspended animation during most of the voyage. They are under the care of David, an enigmatic life-like robot both fascinated and repelled by his human creators.
When they get there, they find evidence of intelligent design in the form of ancient hollow structures filled with corridors. After further exploration the aliens (called the Engineers) are revealed to them. They have left behind still-functioning chambers filled with strange urns and devices. Holographic recordings of the aliens are operating. Their bodies are preserved, even after 2,000 years. And finally they find a life-support pod with a live alien -- the very thing the scientists and Weyland were hoping to find. The alien is revived...
During all this, we see that David and Meredith have agendas of their own. And we see that Weyland himself is still alive and on board. David has enough knowledge to deftly use some of the alien technology -- for unknown reasons -- to infect Charlie, knowing that Charlie would impregnate Elizabeth and knowing she might give birth to an alien creature. She doesn't though -- she is able to have the thing medically extricated from her. It is not killed however. At the same time we see that there are also living creatures in the alien structure. They attack two of the crew, one of which is used as a host to wreak havoc on the ship.
I went into this movie with high expectations. From the trailers the movie seemed to be original and epic in the way that Avatar was. I was not aware that this would be an Alien movie. I enjoyed the Alien movies because of their gritty science-fiction realism, but I was disappointed that this turned out to be another movie in that franchise. This movie should have been marketed as an Alien movie.
Normally I can suspend disbelief quite readily in an entertaining movie. However I had problems this time around.
The rationale behind mounting such a huge, expensive space exploration operation was not sufficiently explained. For something like this to happen, wouldn't all of humanity have been aware of it and the reason for it? And yet even the crew apparently didn't know all the details.
Why would Weyland spend so much to mount a mission of this kind and then select a ragtag group of people to crew it, especially an unstable person like Fifield? It seemed so pointless. These are people that a fast-food restaurant wouldn't hire. They engage in behaviour that co-workers at an ordinary office would never do.
I know what happened: in the earlier Alien movies one of the interesting themes was "Marines in space". Marines are edgy people, but this was a scientific mission. It was annoying to see Fifield on board. What you would want are the solid people you find on a NASA mission.
The people on this mission were so...clueless. They didn't seem to know each other. It didn't make sense that everything had to be explained to them when they woke up. And that they disagreed with each other about aspects of the mission (eg whether to bring weapons with them). Surely there would have been massive preparations and long training sessions before launching a trillion-dollar spaceship?? The intent was for these odd characters to make the movie more interesting, but it went too far.
It was groan-worthy that they allowed themselves so freely to touch, and be contaminated by, this alien world. Not just once, but many times. The viewer of course is fully aware of the dangers, so it is implausible that these space explorers wouldn't have been. A flaw that screamed at the moviegoer, even sympathetic ones.
When the mission of the Engineers became clear to Elizabeth, it just didn't seem, well, right. How did she draw that conclusion from what we had seen? And it seemed implausible that the crew would sacrifice themselves because of a few words shouted at them.
Michael Fassbender's portrayal of David was astonishing. This ubiquitous actor's range is apparently limitless.
Elizabeth and Charlie were too young and didn't come across as scientists. However, Rapace delivered a great performance as a tough survivor. I look forward to seeing Elizabeth and David in a sequel.
Why did they use a young actor to play Weyland? Guy Ritchie was fine, but it was clear that this is a young man in old-guy makeup. Why didn't they just find an old actor? I suppose there must have been a reason for it.
Theron (another great actress) played her character well, but the character's role in the movie was not dramatically effective. It's realistic to have someone like her on board though.
One final comment: It's a good movie, a beautiful movie, an enigmatic movie, but not an original one.