OK - not bad - not great

Rating: 8/10 (12 June 2012)

I was, like many of you, looking forward to this movie. I'm a sci-fi movie fan, the bottom line of which means I've sat through a lot of dross over the years hoping against hope that THIS movie will match up (or at least come close) to the 'classics' like Bladerunner, Alien or one of the better Trek movies (see my standards aren't sky high). I didn't HATE this movie (the opening scene was wonderfully 'mystical') and the way the whole movie shot is also stunning. The plot though -hmmm. It *is* a prequel - I got that much by myself, and it *does* give us a little insight into the 'space jockeys' (I didn't feel it did them a horrid disservice) and the creatures they had decided to replace uswith. My issues came with the silly things (the ending), and the 2 dimensional characters about whom we are supposed to care. I cared very much about Ellen Ripley (even in the dire Alien 4), but not so much about Dr Shaw. The Android David was the only person I came close to wondering about (and why didn't they make a bigger deal about the sibling rivalry between him and Theron's character?). Guy Pearce was wasted as the overly made up old geezer. Some reviewers have said for them this movie was themed around 'sacrifice' - however for me I got 'bad ideas'. It was a bad idea for the Space Jockeys too replace us with a life-form that turned on them. They were smart enough to create mini-space jockeys (us) but not smart enough to test out the proto-aliens (they made thousands of DNA-modules containing their essence) before they realised their creations were rapacious killers only intent on reproducing. It was a bad idea for the scientists to NOT wonder why the ship they got was full of mostly NON science types. I twas a bad idea for the old guy to 'allow' his daughter to go on the trip - and put her in charge. He says during the movie that 'she came anyway' but he's the BOSS of a HUGE corporation - he could've prevented it (even though she thought he was dead) It was a bad idea to not learn more about the moon before landing on it. It was a bad idea to let people get on the ship before seeing if they were infected (if your crew mate is folded into an origami frog, its a bad idea OK?) Having said all that - I totally understood why Shaw wanted to talk to the SJs - even if just to say 'wtf guys? you seriously thought those creatures were BETTER than us?' I understood why David allowed the pregnancy - he was under orders from old-made-up guy to find the secret of eternal life and this seemed like a good opportunity. I didn't understand why he didn't mention her obvious removal of the alien life-form though. He just looks slightly annoyed about it. As for squid baby growing on no food - I thought that was obvious too - it grew to a 3 month size in 10 hours, it was designed to just GROW until it found a host. Overall the film asked more questions than it answered - that's OK I'm used to that but still, it was a bit of a let down. The script guys need a caning though - the dialogue was pretty dire at times. I have to say I was disappointed overall - but its not a horrible movie - its just not as great as it COULD have been. Even if you go into this with no expectations (and that's hard considering the trailers being everywhere, whetting our appetites) its still a bit of a let down (and this is from someone who really liked Starship troopers).