Insult to intelligence

Rating: 2/10 (19 September 2012)

Reading the plot synopsis, the cast list and the name of the director, you would think that very little could go wrong, but it transpires, you would, be mistaken.
The introduction has an intriguing scene with a gigantic bald blue bodybuilder apparently sacrificing himself. The initial scene on board the spacecraft has the now commonplace 'android checking on things' scene, but it is well done. At no point am I going to question the visual flair.
However, the plot is thinner than graphene. The sacrifice scene, that hooks you at the start, is not even slightly explained as the film progresses, it is just abandoned back there in the beginning and left to rot in your mind. The characters are dumb and do inexplicable things. The android dude is like the joker in Batman Dark Knight - 'an agent of chaos' doing inexplicable and horrible things to his crew with no apparent motive. The gigantic alien engineer is dumb and does inexplicable things. The space craft pilots (as usual) inexplicably sacrifice themselves for the good of all mankind although there is no previous record of their character expressing any sort of ideology.
The visuals are good. The music is, well, pretty much non-existent. It has a sort of Close Encounters (i.e. pretentious) quality to it. I could make a more tuneful racket jumping up and down on a cornflakes box.
A film posturing as Alien with none of the depth offered by the original 2+4 (skipping 3) or the likes of Pitch Black. The reason Ridley Scott wants to pretend it is not a prequel to Alien is because he couldn't be bothered to make a good film.
Honestly, this film is not worth writing a review, but is so bad in its context, that I feel compelled to anyway. You needn't deny yourself watching it, if you just want to experience the visual elements - it is worth watching for the clean polished visuals and the 'hint' of intrigue, but just set your expectation-o-meter to its lowest possible value or you will kick yourself.
2 stars from me for pretending to be intriguing and for the visual aspects, but apart from that, this like Indiana Jones 4 will be erased from my memory and my life.