Oh the holes...

Rating: 7/10 (20 February 2014)

Although I own this film, have watched it several times and quite enjoy it overall...there are many glaring plot holes that make the film monumentally less than it could be. I understand sticking with a general theme, to satisfy fans, in the tradition of "give them what they want! Yep, get that. But...did this reboot have to have the fumbling bumbling "oh dam we got ourselves into one heck of a jam as intended and made it worse" so obligatory, blatant, and just plain silly in it's portrayal? Are we the fans of the Alien series, this dumb? This willing to overlook so much? The producers seem to think so. I suppose I am that dumb, just to see another Alien series movie, I will put aside any notion of intelligence. So, this is to be a scientific mission of discovery, privately funded. Wondrous and glorious...let's go. I presume we are leaving any actual scientists at home then? I give the chosen "experts" this amount of sway. These scientists are allowed to be goofballs...they were hired guns (so to speak, even though guns were frowned upon in the investigation of an alien race that could be entirely hostile). So on we go...doo dee doo, just walk right into the alien base and take our helmets off, they are friendly, there are no contagions to worry about or possibly infect and kill our new friends either. That would be yucky. Wee! It's fun time! They are our dear old mummy and daddums! Sure. As it goes, two members of the team get lost in this friendly genetic reunion horseshoe shaped vessel. Seems like it would be rather easy to find the way out...But, I'm dumb, I'm not an expert, so...sure. Anyway, although the team on the ship can see odd blips of alien life, they can't see the lost humans in spacesuits that have clear radio coms, life support monitors (when convenient to the plot) on the incredibly detailed map created by the scanner "pups" sent throughout (a big point was made in showing the capabilities of these scanners, really neat stuff). All the special effects dedicated to their astounding remote scanning abilities, yet they are apparently utterly, totally, useless in locating two lost humans or helping them find their way out. Massive. Glaring. Hole. Now, we have the goofball xenobiologist, who sees what any person in the known universe would see as a very likely dangerous and threatening alien serpent...as a cuddly little bunny and "she's beautiful!" He wants to snuggle up with it at first sight! I won't spoil the result as if it won't be incredibly obvious on first view what will happen. Just totally inane, and to be frank totally condescending to push this on what will largely be a fairly evolved audience in this genre. There's more, but hey, like I said, I'm a fan. I'll live through bad acting, huge plot holes, all that. Just keeping making the dam movies...I'll still go. I'm dumb like that.