Oh dear Ridley what have you done

Rating: 4/10 (19 June 2012)

As an avid Scifi fan I was really looking forward to this 'alien' prequel and perhaps therein lies the problem but this film is flawed on so many levels I do not know where to begin but I will begin with the biggest and most fatal flaw of the lot. I did not care! The characters are so under developed that not only didn't I care about any of them but didn't really understand why any would behave in the ways that they did. Fassbender was OK, Rapace wasn't bad given her command of the English language is less than perfect but all others were vacuous and frankly pointless. Theron suffers particularly for this poor lack of development and just comes across as wooden rather than cold which I suspect was the intention.
The second problem is plausibility. Now I know it's a scifi and you need to suspend disbelief but that should be limited to the premise. As it is we are asked to believe that these so called scientists, educated and measured people would disregard scientific methods and become mindless idiots, wandering off from groups (cliche) and prodding and poking things as soon as they see them. Collecting samples in what can only be described as a duffle bag is among the worst of these actions.
Finally and perhaps most disappointingly for Alien fans is where is the menace? Alien and some of the sequels succeeded because you were anxious almost all the way through the film. Here there was none, no egde of your seat moments, no heart stopping scenes, just a collection of uneven scenes hastily cobbled together to minimal effect.
It is beautifully shot hence why I've given it 4 stars but other than that very poor and for me the most underwhelming film I've seen in a long while!