Not what I was expecting

Rating: 6/10 (1 June 2012)

Where to start, OK when I first heard the rumours that Ridley Scott was going back to the Alien franchise I was so excited I could nearly explode. The potential of one of the greatest film directors re-visiting a genre defining film but with the advantages of 30 years of experience and modern techniques and equipment could be one of the greatest films ever.
So to say the least my expectations where high.
The trailers and speculation online and in print had whetted my appetite and the marketing machine in full swing had built my desire for this film to be good like few films before.
I found myself reflecting during the screening on what made Alien such a good film, and also films like Aliens and Jaws. Directors I think work best when they have real restrictions in place with budgets and the equipment and technologies available to them. When you have to build tension through style and cinematography, when it's more about what you don't see than it is about what you can show the REAL directors step up to the plate and can deliver stories of real impact.
This like so many other films lacks originality, spends far too much time celebrating how good CGI can be and doesn't bother to imbue its villain with any kind of personality or character.
The basic plot is covered in the trailers, discovered all over Earth across multiple sites and throughout all history there is a common recurring theme of a star map, a location, an invitation?? So of they go, a rag tag group of scientist and industrialists with one Android looking after them in hyper sleep. From there you already know the story because it is exactly what you think it will be, only unlike the original Alien there is no tension and little conflict, no horror, no suspense and nothing original. It would be hard to invent a film language like he did in the original, but here he has followed the conventions of sci-fi like a paint by numbers film, lazy story telling but beautifully put together.