Don't bother with a sequel just yet.

Rating: 3/10 (25 March 2014)

I don't know what went on behind the scenes of this debacle but the result, as I've seen it, is a film stuck in potential. Much like Coppola's "Dracula", its look is "neat" while almost everything else about it is a mess. There are too many elements competing for screen time, too many side stories started and not finished and way, way too many references to other films in the genre. In fact, the earliest chords of the score sounded so much like the music from Star Trek, I half expected them to be followed by voice-overs from James T. Kirk or Jean-Luc Picard. Atrocious does not begin to describe the "acting" but, more pointedly, the characters seemed to want to get away from each other as much as they wanted to get away from their situation(s). Given that individually and collectively they came across as ridiculously annoying, shallow and self-centered, who could blame them? Without convincingly sincere camaraderie between at least some of the characters there is no real cohesion to the film and what has ended up on screen is a patchwork of scenes attempting to present a coherent story. Uh, no. Be that as it may, I'll have to watch it again (and again?) because, while mired in the film's ample flotsam, I forgot whether or not the reason(s) for the engineers changing their minds has/have been definitively clarified. In summation, I find this film to be all over the place. Perhaps it is intentional since it does, in effect, lay the groundwork for sequels. However, if the recent Star Wars films are any indication and given the impatience of this generation, I question how much time will be spent awaiting.