Visually stunning but no engine under the hood !

Rating: 4/10 (4 August 2013)

Well where do you start with this movie. It was a movie I was so looking forward to. Ridley Scott has produced some of my favourite movies, so with him in charge how could it possibly go wrong ? Visually the movie is extremely impressive both from the CGI aspect and the sets that were created that gave an epic movie feel. But sadly the story line and character development appeared to have been written by a five year old. Don't get me wrong there is absolutely nothing wrong with the concept for the prequel, in fact it's a great idea and the potential to write a brilliant script was there. But Ridley would have been well advised to have got Frank Darbont involved in this prequel both to help with the storyline and in particular with the character development, something Frank does extremely well. He builds believable characters you empathise with and care about . Instead he ended up with 2 dimensional characters who you don't really relate to, and as such don't care what happens to them.They also don't act at all like the people they are meant to be representing or at all like you'd expect them to in the different situations they find themselves in. Watching the documentary afterwards you get the feeling their were too many people involved in the storyline decision making and as such there is no continuity to the film. It jumps from one event to the next with scenes not reaching a climax or conclusion. As for plot holes and things that simply didn't make sense, here's just a few. ( Note Spoilers !! )
1) Milburn a biologist that wants to go back to the ship when they fond a 2000 year old alien corpse ?
2) Fifield the mapping Wizard who gets lost ?? I mean we have the capability now to re-trace our steps electronically let alone in the future
3) The crew who've been asleep for two and a half years suffer nauseas, sickness and mobility problems when they awake and yet the 'creator ?' who's been in limbo for 2000 years becomes a ninja warrior when he's awakened.
4) All the Creators buddies have been killed by what ever they created and his spacecraft left stranded, so he climbs in a life pod for 2000 years. Amazingly the ship is all okay when he awakens and he can fly off ! Why didn't he do this before ???? Not to mention there are other crafts on the planet....oh and how did Dave the Droid know that ??
5) They too easily take there helmets off.
6) Too easily open the bow doors to anything that comes knocking.
7) Shaw bouncing around after an alien caesarean that was office stapled together...not to mention (and she didn't) that an alien life form had just been removed from her stomach!
8) Guy Richie playing an old man.....errr why ???
And many many more to numerous to mention.
A beautifully rendered movie destroyed by inept story telling and character development !
I wouldn't trust Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof to write a 'back in a minute' note !