Chain this to the rock

Rating: 3/10 (2 March 2019)

I haven't seen much of the Alien Franchise so I'm watching this with only a memory of "Alien" in mind.
I'm afraid if you're going into this eager for a visual stunning, intelectually stimulating piece of sci-fi action adventure drama you're going to be disappointed.
Maybe the nuances of this movie will be more meaningful to someone more familiar with the franchise but I thought this whole thing was kind of derivative.
Now i'm not a snob when it comes to these movies: I'm very willing to believe this kind of thing can be intelligently written and original while at the same time i am happy to have the usual formula of cool monsters, lazer fire and blood everywhere.
We don't have much of a premise, all the characters are pretty bland and wooden and it takes a long time for anything to happen. i get the importance of building atmosphere but this gave me so little in the way of motivation or character beyond a few crude types I wasn't really invested in anyone or anything I was seeing.
There's good production values of course; plenty of great sets and design but it's all more of what we've seen before. They do the "classical music in space" cliche which I'd be fine with but it's...just guess...yes Chopin's Raindrop Prelude. Why is it always Chopin? This is emblematic of the level of originality this movie gives.
We are almost halfway before anything really cool happens and the aliens of this movie are few and far between. The motivations of the antagonist are confusing to say the least.
It's not very gripping, not very emotional nor does it give you much to think about except some nebulous ideas about hubris and immortality. it's dull. It took me three sittings to get through it. Maybe i should give it slack for being the first in a planned series and it's job is really just to lay groundwork for the sequel but that still is not a point in its favour.
The ending deserves a better movie to have come before.