Epic Fail

Rating: 5/10 (17 June 2012)

Where do I begin? The awful casting? (Fassbender is the lone exception) Horrible script? Muddled plot? A myriad of Clichés? No I think I'll start with the concept-which makes absolutely no sense. Riddle me this-If Ridley Scott didn't want to make another Alien movie, then why connect it to Alien at all? Either give us Aliens or give us an original film. I would be equally excited about either possibility. Why tell an origin story if you are going to make it line up only on certain points but not all? The Alien from the original film holds no bearing whatsoever on the plot and its' execution. So why include it???? Money? I can't think of any other reason. Back to the top. The casting is awful. Rapace, while looking strangely similar to Sigourney, has nothing to work with I'll admit (horrible script), but she didn't help by turning in a very average performance. I didn't care about her character at all. The script is rife with clichés and where is the hard science??? Nothing brought up in the 1st half of the film is resolved by the end either. What we get is a muddled mess of a film that has no real substance. I laughed when I saw the worst film mistake of all time repeated again and again by hundreds of film-makers-you know, where some giant thing is falling on the actors and all they have to do is run right or left to avoid death but they keep running straight along the objects' path? Grrrrrrrr...this is elementary stuff. Horrible film mistake #2-Characters committing suicide without a thought and with a smile on their face. I just don't get this movie cliché'. (See Michelle Rodriguez' death in Avatar). Despite mind-blowing set pieces and an epic turn by Fassbender, this film disappoints beyond belief. I couldn't care less if they made a sequel. Oh yes, and there is zero character development. Rapace is the only one who gets 5 minutes of a past to add weight to her character. And look, I don't want to hear that "an artist doesn't have to spoon-feed the audience" crap. You can only get away with that type of story telling if the characters have meat. I say again where is the hard science??? You want to claim you made a sophisticated film but you keep it dumbed down??? I'm so confused. And don't you dare compare this to Blade Runner. The characters in that film are fully developed, and there is a clear direction to the plot. Not so here. Epic, epic fail.