A huge disappointment.

Rating: 3/10 (20 November 2012)

I remember many years ago leaving the cinema after watching Alien: The eight passenger. I was sixteen years old, and shaken to the core. When a police car passed with blue lights flashing, but no sirens, I jumped two feet into the air from sheer shock.
Later I watched James Cameron's Aliens and while I wasn't blown away the same way, the aggressive, gung ho style of the movie made for a very entertaining romp.
Since then the Aliens franchise has been a downhill slope, and I'd all but given up on it. So when the word spread that Ridley Scott was returning to where he came from, I was. to say the least, excited.
I was, however, very disappointed with the result.
It simply, in spite of being an impressive visual spectacle, never caught my attention. The plot was messy and clunky, where silly things would happen simply in order to have things move on, and half the characters that was present might as well not have been for all that they mattered.
In the end there was more questions raised than answers given, and the obvious To Be Continued ending didn't do anything to improve it.
The worst part was the flat, unengaging two-dimensional characters. I didn't care about their fate, because I had no idea who they were and where they came from. The comparisons between Sigourney Weaver and Noomi Rapace are ludicrous. Where Weaver came across as tough and resourceful even when terribly scared and running for her life, Rapace is going through the motions without ever convincing me, not aided by one of the most silly scenes in the history of cinema.
The exceptions was Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron, who were both giving solid performances, but, alas, to no avail. There's were the only characters I was interested in, but again, unfortunately, very few answers were given and utterly pointless events defined their respective conclusions.
The presence of Guy Pearce in this movie remains to me the biggest question. Why, why, why? Utterly and completely miscast for this part, his character is such a stereotype that it becomes laughable.
After Ridley Scott's recent work, Body of Lies and Robin Hood I had serious doubts whether he still had the ability to create the sweeping, epic dramas he once were so good at. This movie nailed that doubt to the board.
4/10