So this movie wants to be seen as a standalone movie, rather than a
prequel to Ridley Scott's own 1979 movie Alien, which takes place in
the same 'universe' as this movie, so lets also take it that way. And
as a standalone genre movie it is pretty good, though it's nothing new
or too exciting really.
It's actually a shockingly standard movie, with a quite standard story
in it, though I perhaps should also add that I have seen plenty of
other science-fiction movies, that did some similar things as this
movie as well. I still say shocking, since after so much secrecy
surrounding this movie, I expected something deeper and more clever
perhaps. I just never really got any of that out of this movie.
This movie only has hints of a great movie and great ideas in it. in
that regard this movie maybe works better as a setup movie for a
potential sequel(s).
The final 30 minutes of the movie are definitely its best but before
that it mostly is being a slow moving one, even while it gets apparent
pretty early on already what direction the story will be heading at and
what will happen next. But still, the movie is such a well made- and
good looking one that it never becomes boring to watch neither.
Despite not wanting to be taken as a prequel, the movie still makes a
few nods to the other previous Alien movies, especially to the first
movie "Alien". For instance with certain scenes, things that can be
seen, pieces of dialog, characters and character behavior, etcetera.
It's all enough to please the fans but not too much for those who
aren't familiar yet with any of the other previous Alien movies. So in
other words, it never gets anything too annoying or distracting from
this movie, for anyone.
The casting is being a bit of a mixed bag. Some actors fit their roles
very well, while other clearly don't. Charlize Theron for instance
isn't being very good or convincing as a tough, cold cooperate
executive. She just doesn't has the right looks for that, unless she
gains 30 pounds and stops showering for a week or two, like she did for
her Oscar winning performance in "Monster". Michael Fassbender on the
other hand was much better and probably also the best and most
interesting character out of the entire movie, even though he plays an
android that is not supposed to have and show any emotions. It perhaps
should also tell you something about the movie and its characters that
he was being the best and most interesting one, out of it.
Seems that the movie wanted to have far too many characters in it.
Really, 5 or 6 characters should had been the maximum. But because
there are so many different ones, you don't ever really feel like you
get to know any of them and some of the characters even get pushed to
the background way too much, which also goes at the expense of some of
the great actors in this movie. There are even persons with hardly any
lines in this movie. The Asian looking guy for instance didn't had any
lines, until its very end! I could be wrong though but point is that I
didn't even knew what his purpose was. And that is the case with too
many of the characters in this movie, that is besides for most part is
missing a good, strong but above all visible main character in it.
Another thing I really didn't like about this movie was its musical
score. Now, I know that Jerry Goldsmith is dead but just listen to the
scores of the other Alien movies. It's all being somewhat similar in
tone to Goldsmith's score and share some of the same motifs. The score
for this movie, composed by Marc Streitenfeld (who?), really didn't
seem to suit this movie and its atmosphere, or it at least did nothing
to strengthen it. It's just being too much its own thing.
Still it really isn't a movie that you could or should hate. The only
way someone could hate on this movie, is if that person was expecting a
new brilliant movie like "Alien", or one that was being more similar to
it at least. But really, you should see this movie with a more open
mind and don't have you expectations up too high for it. When you are
able to, you will get to see a pretty good genre movie. Really,
technically and visually there is very little wrong with this movie.
It still remains a great and well made genre movie but it's just still
nothing to get too excited about, in my opinion.
7/10
Watch trailer
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