Entertaining enough but not destined to become a classic

Rating: 7/10 (8 June 2012)

Let me first say that I enjoyed this film, it had all the right tick boxes for me.
1. Genre. I love science fiction.
2. SFX, really good spaceships.
3. A robot that wants to be Peter O'Toole, really, he does.
4. A strong female lead character.
5. The film passes the Bechdel Test,but only just.
Now for the things that didn't quite work for me.
Some of the characters seemed to be very one dimensional, in fact several of them seemed quite pointless as they played no real part in the story. For example Vickers, ostensibly she is on the ship as a representative of the Weyland Corporation; however she is curiously separate from the rest of the crew. She has no function either on the ship or on the mission to investigate the alien planet. When she does give an order she is totally ignored . I can't help but think that someone somewhere thought that the cast needed a hot blonde.
Which brings us to two of the scientists who, having signed on for the exploration and subjected themselves to two years in cryosleep, then spend the entire time bitching about it while on board. And, when they finally get onto the planet they quickly become scared and want to rush back to the ship. Who screened these people before hiring them? The geologist Fifield, wanted to take a weapon onto the planet, I thought okay, he must be a security guard with the expedition party, but he turned out to be a geologist, but he took no tools of his trade with him, not even one teeny little rock hammer. Once there, he took one look at the dead alien, and promptly decided that that there was nothing on the planet for a geologist to investigate and headed back to the ship. It was a planet for God's sake; he was surrounded by alien rocks!! His sidekick, I'm still not entirely sure what sort of scientist he was decided to tag along. You might just as well have made them carry signs saying 'Dead Meat' or even just gone the whole hog and put them in red shirts!
The ship's pilots were there in order to die heroically, that's all. I don't think that we even learned their names.
But the main problem I have is, why would aliens go to the trouble of creating humans, leave us maps to the planet in the archaeological record, only to try to destroy us once we get there? And why would they want to infect Earth and get rid of us completely. Were we a failed experiment, or are the aliens playing with us and getting bored with their toys?
I will definitely go and see the next instalment, if only for an answer to that last question, but I'm not really expecting to be completely blown away as I was with the sequel to Alien.