I've seen it twice with multiple groups of friends (some of which hadn't ever seen an 'Alien' movie). Excellent and worth many viewings!

Rating: 10/10 (15 August 2012)

For those who are fans of the 'Alien' saga, you'll love this film. Director of the original, Ridley Scott, does a great job exploring themes and ideas about the origins of life on Earth, and how they might tie in to the events of the 'Alien' story.
The strength of this film, is it's balance of creepy horror and truly deep storytelling. From a horror stand point, the creep factor of 'Alien' has always been in the nature of the Xenomorph life cycle (I don't want to spoil anything here for those who aren't familiar with it), and this film delivers it's share of horrific moments. However it's never just for horror's sake, and the moments always lend themselves well to the intellectual storytelling. The kind where the viewer has to do a little bit of thinking on their own, and come up with some answers that aren't spoon fed to them, but instead, dropped in subtle hints and clever writing. Characters, who also don't know what is going on, will sometimes try to lend their frantic opinions to throw the audience some shapes, as they say.
From the standpoint of someone unfamiliar with the 'Alien' saga, you're not going to miss anything. The film functions as a standalone if you don't know enough about the fore-story (I saw this with some friends who hadn't seen any of the 'Alien' movies), and knowledge of the other films only helps to enrich the viewer's story comprehension, not leave everyone else behind.
It explores a lot of good philosophical ideas, such as the possibilities of the origins of life, and the consequences of tampering with things beyond our comprehension (I found myself later considering the potential consequences of stem cell research and DNA tampering). There's also some religious implications. Although none of it overwhelms the overall work, and the viewer, should they pick up on these themes, is left to ponder them at their own will, instead of being forced to roll their eyes as if to say "c'mon already, get to the good stuff".
As for the other non-script driven elements, the special effects were top notch and the acting awesome. There wasn't any over cheeseyness as there might be in other horror movies, and I personally love Michael Fassbender. I also appreciated the absence of a common absurdity suffered by many horror movies, namely: the tendency of characters to act as though everything is alright when it obviously isn't. Scott doesn't insult the audience's intelligence, and the characters will often do exactly what we would do: do what must be done in the interest of self preservation. This was a problem I had with the original 'Alien', and it is thankfully much more down to Earth, so to speak.