Plot holes as big as the sun

Rating: 2/10 (8 August 2012)

I just saw the film in the cinema and was torn apart between the spectacular special effects, the very intense sound effects and the believable world on the one hand and the plot/lame actors on the other hand. Man, I just started to shake my head during the middle of the film. Doesn't anybody preview such films before money is spent? Let's start with the beginning (Spoiler ahead):
>Why using/wasting so much time with the android David wandering around, playing basketball, watching films when you could actually tell a story instead?
>Then comes in the blond tough girl Meredith Vickers. Her role in the film? Judging from the first scenes, she will be a tough girl to fight and she will have the part of the aggressor. She is overly stiff and straight. But hey, this is a film, judge again, this all doesn't count because none of this will happen, she is only in bad acting mode. Has some issues with her farther, but this is only a side note and not evaluated further.
>Next the old guy, the financier of the whole trip. Obviously the actor playing the character is young and wearing a mask and make up to look him old. Your thought could be, "he will rejuvenate". But guess again, he just dies, and this very quickly at the end. No surprise that he is on the ship too. What this storyline does for the film? Nothing. Why didn't they use actual an old actor for this part instead? No clue.
>The android on this ship seems to have a plan. Which plan is not explained. He knows the language of the aliens and touches everything that isn't fixed. Where he learned that language? Not told. You see that he is learning languages, but I can learn french and can't speak Arab...Nobody seems to care that he activates this and that, doors and holograms without checking with the others or without an order. Just doing his thing there. He is also the one doing an fatal "experiment" or should we call it plain murder (Weyland). Why does he do it? What motives does he have? No explanation is given.
>One of the crew members, who had to stay in the alien structure and got killed by an organism comes back as a zombie. Why he still lives, as everybody saw he is dead, is not told? Nobody seams to ask that question either, instead everybody shoots him. Good solution anyway, because he seems to have super strength now. At this point some questions should be asked amongst the crew, but no time for that, the next spectacle is around the corner..
>The heroine is infested with an alien by deceased friend/lover Weyland and the android wants her tugged away in cryo sleep for "her own safety". Why he does that, who knows, the story is not giving us any clues. Perhaps some kind of secret agenda? After placing her on a table to be prepped for cryo sleep she attacks the ones prepping her and runs to the automatic operation unit. Nobody seems to follow her. Even after the event this obviously isn't a big deal, since in that universe everybody gets a beating once in a while.....She tries to get the fast growing alien inside her out of her body and afterwards doesn't even bother to warn the others, that the androids behavior seems a little odd, since he has wanted to get her out of the way before. Instead, at the end of the film she forgives him and has a little chit chat with him. Another subplot that doesn't work.
>As for the others: Nobody seems to have some relationship on that ship not even a professional one. The motivations for the actions: unknown or barely told. Pale and lame. The descision to nuke the alien ship comes out of the blue since no one seems to have any interest in others or the earth because of missing background stories. Seldom you see such a crap on film. Man this is even frustrating to write.
>Continuation error: The alien in the seat, you see in Alien 1 is there. It is kind of a suit that folds around the alien life form, when it tries to start the ship to earth. But somebody has to explain the director how the crew in Alien 1 can find the alien suit when the alien which the suit folds around is not in that seat anymore at the end, because it went after Mrs Shaw to kill it in the life boat where it gets killed by the grown alien which was operated out of the belly of the heroine. So actually there is nothing to fold around. And the hole in that suit is evenly not explained...Perhaps the Alien 1 ship is another one, with another alien...
>No hint or explanation what the grey or black substance is, no explanation what the recordings do, oh man, this is crap......
Summary: The two stars go for the exceptional special effects and the sound.