Commendable failure, but still a failure.

Rating: 3/10 (4 November 2012)

Regarding this film, I was a huge fan of the first two Alien movies, and a big fan of Scott in general, met him and he was a very nice man. So it was with great excitement that I got to take my fiancée to see this in the opening week at the Imax. Despite all the debates about the film, all that matters is what I see on the screen the first time I go, and then the only thing that really matters is 'Is it any good...?' My answer isn't a simple yes and no unfortunately. Its certainly would be silly to dismiss it as crap, but I can't chant its praises either, even though I really want to, and as I said before I met Ridley and he was a very nice man and I am a big fan. IT IS A FILM YOU SHOULD SEE ON A BIG SCREEN, THE BIGGER THE BETTER, of that, there is no doubt.
I need to prefix my comments here with the following - Ultimately, I don't care if its part prequel, all prequel or isn't a prequel and someone is pretending that its not a prequel all I care about is 'DOES IT MAKE A GOOD FILM IN ITS OWN RIGHT' ??? Does it work on its own? Because it certainly should. It has a great premises, a good cast, and it looks lovely, so why doesn't it work? Now when I first left the screen I was in a good mood, but part of me felt really empty, then as time went past I realised more and more of the film didn't make sense, contradicted the boundaries of the films own reality (Don't you hate it when they do that? See the last Brosnan Bond for an explanation) and there seemed to be huge chunks missing. Okay, great there might be a directors cut to come, awesome, look forward to that. But that should add depth to whats already there, not compensate for holes that already exist, and this film had holes a plenty.
The good points were as always Scotts use of the Camera, the shots, the visuals, effects, casting, (Some of the acting) but the bad were plenty too.
The script has some dire, truly dire, lines. Characters that are established as scared when there is nothing to be scared of act completely unafraid when an obviously snake like monster is about to eat them. The Captain of the ship seems either woefully underwritten or under developed. Idris, I love you normally, but what was going on here? We establish a Captain who does seem to care about and have a loyal crew, then a serious incident occurs which kills at least 5 of them, which passes without so much as a comment or emotional reaction (Cut, perhaps? shoot the editor then) making the rest of his performance therefore totally unbelievable. Naomi Repace is good enough but again her character is so one dimensional, the scene where she removes the foetus, while shocking is made totally laughable by the scenes that immediately follow it, I know this is Science Fiction, but come on, you might as well have an Alien put on a Hawaiian hat then and dance with the android. Repace seemed to be trying an American accent in some scenes and totally repressing her own, then in other scenes, there was her Scandanavian in every word.
The opening 15 minutes gave me loads of confidence that this was really going to be something but it was ruined by a number of convoluted subplots involving Waylan and his dream of an ever lasting life, which though perhaps realistic within the setting is an overused idea that has been seen so many times before - why not focus purely on the dilemmas of the crew of the ship, there were 17 of them after all, many of whom were reduced to no name roles in the credit list (Ship Techician 1 and so on) I can actually remember the names of every single marine in Aliens, even the ones who did not speak, such was the power of the picture, and that was after a single viewing. (Names like Spunkmeyer do tend to stick in the head, but I digress) Other really iffy moments are when two crew are reporting in that they have found Alien life (You know, a fairly big deal!) at this moment the Captain is elsewhere, then when he comes back on the bridge later, he says nothing of the report the men mentioned, trust me, this isn't a plot thing. Everyone can see the crews camera footage, its already been established earlier, so why isn't this mentioned by anyone? Did they forget to hit rewind or something? Characters do really really stupid things, sure like real life, but this is a movie, and it has to work in context presented, and a lot of it didn't. Fassbender was the best thing in the film, but his limitations as an Android seemed to be contradictory at best and by the end really confusing. He laughs at his own jokes, yet is apparently devoid of real feelings. Okay maybe he is trying to learn, like Data from Star Trek or something, who knows because it wasn't explored. I think Fassbender is actually the best British male actor around today and he was brilliant but could not alone save the movie.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate or even dislike this movie, but I find it a little mystifying that someone of the calibre of Scott should make such glaring errors in his film. I am seriously hoping that an extended cut will at least rectify some of the glaring character defects that we seemed to endlessly witness but feel doubtful that it can turn what is a very commendable but ultimately flawed film, into a great one.