Sadly not what I hoped for

Rating: 5/10 (7 October 2012)

This is one of those movies that confirms that you should never really look forward to any movie. Call me pessimist, but it's very very rare that a movie you really wait forward seeing actually delivers. I love Ridley Scott's movies from past decades, Alien, Bladerunner, Legend. They're great movies, but I can't say I liked any of his movies as much after Black Rain.
The good things. Well, it looks pretty good and the general plot is thought-provoking. Noomi Rapace. I wasn't really sure about her being the leading lady here (after seeing her in the original Millennium trilogy), but she really makes this movie, she outshines everyone with Michael Fassbender, who also does a great role.
The not-so-good and bad things. Everything else, starting from the script. It's pretty interesting in the beginning, but a lot of stuff goes unexplained or are left as a mystery. I'm OK with movies that leave space for thought, but I feel they left too many things open here (like "Lost" btw..). You can have a mystery and an explanation in the end. I always loved the way the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) was written. It had a wonderful plot and the way things unraveled in the end, it was great. I guess those days are gone. In the end of this movie you'll just be scratching your head.
Having said that, this may be a case of heavy editing. There must have been an explanation or justification to every single scene in this movie, I'm sure the writers are not dumb. There are so many elements which kind of fit in the story, but are very loose and/or left as a mystery. For example the scene which reveals that Vickers (Theron) is Weylands (Pearce) daughter and showing their troubled relationship. This fits perfectly in a story about creators and creations, but it's completely irrelevant to the movie as it is now. As does the part where Shaw (Rapace) is impregnated. Did David plan it, what was the purpose? It's a pretty huge thing to carry an unknown lifeform, isn't it? But didn't seem that important to writers. There are lot of these things that would kind of fit the story, but are not really explained enough to fit the whole. Who should one blame, the writer, editor, producer, director? I don't know.
Then there's the cast, which is relatively big. I felt there were too many characters and I understand that in movies like Alien and Aliens, where they are on a routine mission or assignment, you have sort of "misfits" in the crew, but this was a billion dollar expedition to make first contact. Not buying it, sorry. The crew was full of morons. A tip to movie makers. You don't need to add "regular" people for movie-goers to relate to. In this movie they are totally out of place, unlike Aliens, which was handled with perfect tone by Mr. Cameron.
Then they had this side story of believing in god. Way too much going on.
While the soundtrack in general was OK, I didn't like the main theme (track "Life" in the OST). It had a "something wonderful" celestial vibe to it and was very out of place, I really disliked it in this movie. The movie was about mostly hostile beings and it wasn't friendly at all. Maybe would've fit in an early Star Trek movie or so, but not this. Horrible contrast, horrible.
I only hope there would be a (super)extended directors cut and maybe a sequel to explain things, otherwise this is just a torso of a movie. Shame on you all for producing this.