Pick your tag line

Rating: 4/10 (20 June 2012)

I really wanted to like this movie. I really like Alien, thought Aliens was a decent sequel, and have a serious celebrity crush on Charlize. But this one just didn't do it for me.
The acting was fine and there were some moments of very good acting (Fassbander in particular). The cinematography is at times stunning and the special effects are quite impressive. But the plot line and the dialog so completely underwhelmed that it ruined the movie for me.
Some people can overlook those faults and just enjoy the "make you jump/squirm in your seat" antics. But some of us can't.
That is why you see such a range of reviews and scores from both critics and fans. Even my local papers in the SF area had three quite different reviews of the same movie.
In summary my view is:

there was no character development. I didn't give a hoot about any of the characters. to me they just seemed like dumb, unimaginative plot fillers for the aliens to eliminate. Even the surviving character(s) didn't really have a semblance of humanity.

dialog was often childish, insipid, out of context or character, or just plain stupid.

the plot had so many holes or inconsistencies it was distracting. Other reviewers have comments that people that complain about things being unexplained "just don't pick up on the clues". And while I often agree with that and myself love a good mystery or Hitchcock film, I found this movie's faults to be more with the inconsistency than the subtle clues.

For more detailed elements of these faults, other reviewers have covered them at length. So in summary I will point out few of the unused marketing tag lines that have been suggested for this movie:

In the dark, no one can see your eyes roll

in space, no one can hear you groan

in the theater no one can hear your boredom

in space no one can hear you snicker