Interesting if a little disappointing

Rating: 7/10 (28 May 2015)

Oddly enough I came to the Alien films in a very roundabout way, I watched Aliens first and thought it was the greatest thing ever then went back and watched Alien which was also superb (the greatest sci-fi action film and sci-fi horror film ever respectively). Alien 3 was the worst film of all time, not only god-awful in itself but ruining your enjoyment of the first 2 films, Alien Resurrection was decent and for the most part rescued the series (thanks Joss) but was still a long way down from the first 2 classics. AvsP are popcorn movies, better than 3 but that's really not saying much. So I was intrigued to see if Ridley Scott could restore the greatness of the series and also to solve the mystery of the 'Space Jockey' which was an essential part of the lore.
Certainly a film that doesn't lack for spectacle and gore, the 'abortion' scene was really out there. The ending was pretty surreal too, be interesting to see how Liz and Michael's relationship develops? The revelations are satisfying, I must say I never suspected that the Space Jockey's facial features were simply a mask, I always thought it was a facehugger that had binded with its' fossilised host over time.
On the bad side what was the point of the zombie attack sequence except to add a little action into a film which rather lacked it? We almost have a few too many characters so it's hard to distinguish between them which is very different to Alien/Aliens, Charlize Theron is pretty much wasted and killed off arbitrarily and anti-climatically and why do we have Idris Elba putting on an American accent, what was wrong with his British one?
So not really up there with Alien/Aliens but easily head and shoulders above all the other films, you rather think that maybe they wanted to do a 2001 style sci-fi epic and used the Alien angle to sell it to the studio/audience?
7/10