Not like any OTHER Alien movie ...

Rating: 8/10 (10 June 2012)

This movie has a lot of similarities to other Alien movies, but this is only skin deep... The movie mostly takes places on an alien moon, orbiting planet, LV-223 (not the one from Alien/Aliens) and their ship is pretty cool and the crew has just awaken from about 4 years of hibernation, during the trip from Earth.
The story is tight and the script is spare, so make sure to pay attention to everything, because it always means something. Many things are setup so you can guess what is going to happen, but this is not a bad thing, because the WHY is so much more interesting ...
There are no wasted moments in the movie. There may have been one or two wasted opportunities - though that remains to be seen (sequel).
Some people complain that the crew was immature or did not follow careful/smart procedures (protocols) during the visit to the alien moon, however they also miss the big point and the twist in the story, but I wont reveal it. You may guess it, but I did not even guess this - though I did guess a lot (which is probably intentional by the director), but again the WHY is so much more fun ... or even cerebral.
I also avoided every promo and trailer after the second trailer - and I did not see those for at least one month. Some movies it best going into knowing as little as possible.
The actor playing David was excellent... most of the special and CGI effects were excellent. When I say the CGI and sets were excellent I mean that they only added to the film - they were not a distraction. The 3D was only OK and unfortunately the theater we were at could not reproduce all the sounds accurately (usually the theater is fine, but I guess that is mostly for Michael Bay type explosions, not this movie).
Most of the cast was pretty good - there is little in depth character development, but there is just enough to figure out what is going on ... after you talked about the movie for some time - with people who PAID ATTENTION :) I do wish some things where changed - some of the deaths were not very 'heroic' or even 'epic' though some may have been epicly 'lame'. Again the character development could have used maybe 10 or 15 minutes more - maybe just some "fun" scenes were we get to know, like or hate or whatever some of the characters.
This is not your father's Alien, this is not Alien vs. Jesus, this is not even Aliens, but it is very good in its own right, maybe even better.
I would also expect to have one more prequel movie before the "proper" Alien (original) one takes place.