Never have I been more gutted leaving a cinema than I was that night!

Rating: 2/10 (5 June 2012)

OK, so I feel the best place to start on this is from the end, more specifically the end of my cinematic experience as I had experienced something I had never experienced before in a cinema which was when the credits began to roll there was a very noticeable but mumbled "WTF?" from virtually everyone in the audience followed by uncountable confused looks and almost deathly silence as everyone filed out and it summed up everything that I was feeling myself.
I have waited on this film for longer than care to think about but I was keeping my expectations as realistic as possible, even if it wasn't great as part of the franchise, given the director, cast & money behind it this should have been a surefire hit as a standalone film but how wrong I was. Dreadful doesn't even come close and rather than try and explain in detail all my gripes I will try and briefly summarize...
1/ I'll start with my only non-gripe, Fassbenders opening was brilliant, when he is doing the housework as it were there is a real feel of the original Alien film about it and it's mood is wonderful.
2/ Fassbenders character for the rest of the film however cant seem to decide whether he is essentially a bit of a nasty sod or not.
3/ A conveniently discovered alien temple.
4/ We genetically descend from an angry 8ft strain of a blue man group member who wants to wipe us out for no discernible reason. Depending on how you interpret the opening sequence it's possible that a rogue jockey created us by sacrificing himself to do so but you never really get to the the bottom of that. TBH I wanted them to stay as out of proportion, elphanty-faced aliens but the cop out "wow they're human" bit was the beginning of the end. I don't see how it's possible that something that looks so different to us can be an identical genetic match and if they had created all life here why is everything else on the planet NOT an identical DNA match too???
5/ The characters on the whole were just terrible with zero development, 2 examples would be the "moment" between Vickers & Janek that destroys all the mystique that Theron had been attempting to build up to that point leaving her little else to do that meet her fate because she can't work out how to run in anything but a straight line...or then there is Fifield who shows us that in the future psychological testing clearly doesn't take place anymore for anyone planning on going on a long space mission.
6/ The "caesarean" scene was nothing short of laughable not to mention the complete lack of...well, a mention of it to anyone else afterward.
7/ ...much like any other scene involving anything alien. the attempted cuddling of the cobra-hugger was right up there in top 10 stupid film moments for me.
8/ The overbearing music was nothing if not distracting.
9/ The ending featuring the xeno-man-penguin was pretty dumb to boot.
10/ The plot holes & religious waffle that essentially meant the story had no proper point or realistically sensible outcome, it did seem to be a metaphor for the film in as much as that to get it you need to take a giant leap of faith.
11/ The general pacing of the movie was dreadful.
12/ None of the characters had ever seemed to have met up until the point that they all woke up, how did that happen?
13/ The "Daddy" moment that carries no point and just lists as another terrible cliché in a list of many spread throughout the film.
14/ The captain who "can't fly worth a damn" according to his crew before they kamikaze into another ship based on nothing more than a hunch.
15/ The aimless nature of the evolution processes and the ridiculous speed at which that all happens. From worm to white cobra- hugger in no time at all, not to mention the rapid growth of the squiddy giant facehugger which did it without any intake of food. Everything grew fast to suit the rushed nature of the film.
16/ The medipod which is "set up for men only" yet is stashed in Vickers living space...For what earthly reason would it be set up for men only and does this mean the big twist was that she's actually a fella but that they just never got round to that?
17/ The Electric stimulator jammed in the Jockey's neck was supposed to achieve what? He wasn't going to talk to them mainly because his body was still lying in a corridor...it then explodes. WHYYYYYYYY???
18/ Was the goo in the earns a life creator or a bio weapon?? It doesn't make sense to me for it to be both.
19/ The over obvious lead into an implied sequel. This was just insulting and lazy!
...I could go on, for a LONG time but this review has a limited word count & I simply cant fit in anymore than a fraction of my annoyance!
Like many others have said it is beautifully set out to start with and the visuals are stunning (which is why it gets 2 stars) but it loses the plot fast and never looks like it wants to rejoin the rest of us opting for it's own LSD fueled trip to Narnia instead. It's lazy, badly put together and seems only to ask questions rather than answer them ...it treats it's audience like they are utter morons.
Ridley Scott has a lot to answer for because even a directors cut isn't saving this patient and in doing what he has he's also managed to inflict real damage on the franchise and mythology as a whole too.