It takes talent to create a film this bad

Rating: 1/10 (9 June 2012)

I'm being completely serious. My friends and I spent a half hour after the film going over everything wrong with it. And like Phantom Menace, there's a lot.
This review contains SPOILERS. The plot is about a team of scientists and others who travel to a far off planet after finding hints in ancient cultures about aliens who may come from there. And therefore, who might know the origins of human life. Yes, it is sort of a precursor to the Alien movie franchise. It's a promising idea with plenty of philosophical and sci-fi subjects to address. But I just want to talk about where it went wrong and warn you. I am giving spoilers, not about how the plot goes, just revealing things that don't make any sense.
First of all, two young good looking phD characters are the scientists. They don't act academic in any way, they don't act educated or that they have any interest in science. They look and act like young actors. There's a humanoid robot who acts evil, but it is never explained why he's being evil. There is a supposed geologist who freaks out for seemingly no reason, acts really scared of everything for no reason, but then later on meets an alien and gets really close and thinks it's really cute. Charlize Theron's character is harsh to everyone, but her character really has no role in doing anything. She's supposed to hint at a secret evil agenda of the corporation that funded the mission, but that agenda doesn't exist. Early on, it's revealed she has an area of the ship that has its own life support and escape system. Gee, I wonder when that will come in useful. She also has a machine that's supposed to be super high tech but looks like one of those little machines that grabs toys in a fairground. There's more.
The scientists find something interesting on the alien planet, like a wall of writing, and then they move right past it without questioning it or thinking about it. The aliens that are revealed don't resemble one another. Why? One guy who's killed comes back with super powers like the ability to climb walls and not get destroyed. Huh? There's more but I just can't list it all in this space.
Oh, and guess what, the special effects aren't as great as the trailer makes them seem. There don't seem to be any 3D scenes after the first few scenes. None at all. The technology really doesn't look any better than Alien, a movie made decades ago.
I had a great time laughing with my friends about all these things that don't make any sense. If you want to see a good sci fi movie, don't see this one. If you want to support good sci fi film makers and not support awful ones, then do NOT see this one. If you're seeing it for free and want a good laugh, like most people in my theater were doing during the film, then see this one.