Watched this as well, second time. It's still a 6/10, might've been a 7 were it not for the derivative plot and overuse of classic lines (one or two minor ones would've been fine, but they pretty much used every iconic line possible).
On the point of it being derivative, I couldn't help but think about The Force Awakens this time around. It's as if they threw Alien and Aliens into a blender, then sprinkled some Prometheus-isms on top. Let's just hope they don't Last Jedi the next one.
And Prey absolutely remains the better of the two.
I had no intention of seeing this due to the stupid hybrid and black goo nonsense, however, I did end up seeing it a couple of months ago. I was guilt tripped into going basically. Very briefly, my brothers and our dad used to see movies a lot until around 15 years or so ago. My dad being a big Alien fan wanted us all to go to cinema again as a "for old times sake" kind of thing and he's not getting any younger.
Anyway....
I knew I wouldn't like the ending. I don't like the goo and I've never liked this silly hybrid business. Saw the end bit on YouTube, the hybrid is hilarious. What possessed them to do the Alien Resurrection ending?!
I was expecting however, to like the film up to that point, so was extremely disappointed to find the film mediocre. A 6/10 seems fair.
It starts so well. I enjoyed the world building, I enjoyed the initial exploration scenes. I quite liked the attention they paid the facehuggers, however I've never been particularly creeped out by them and I'm still not now, but it's nice he tried to do something interesting with them and make them stand out beyond a necessary point to get to the real focus of an Alien movie, the Xenomorph.
However, it all went wrong once the Xeno showed up. Any originality seemed to go out the window. It was paint by numbers Alien movie. If you've seen any Alien movie before, you've seen this.
Once the Xeno shows up, it's a speed run of Aliens (except with one person with a pulse rifle instead of a platoon of Marines) straight into the Alien Resurrection ending.
The Xenomorph was so wasted in this movie. I struggle to think of anything memorable. Sure they did the cocoon thing, but seriously is that it? Is that all the creativity and originality they could muster?
Honestly it felt like a very well produced fan film at times. The amount of call backs and lines was ridiculous.
As I've found with Alvarez's previous films, the characters were incredibly forgettable and weakly written. I honestly only remember Andy and Rain.
I couldn't wait for the 2 English douches to die. The Asian pilot and Latina baby mamma were such non characters.
The digital necromancy of Ian Holm was rather unnecessary. Didn't hate it but again, it's unoriginal. They could have come up with an original character.
The pulse rifle was just ridiculous. Why the hell did the Colonial Marines stop using that beauty? They'd have had cleared Hadley's Hope in half an hour and been home in time for tea and medals.
If one untrained teenager can wreck most of a hive in 3 mins of screen time, a platoon of trained Marines would have hilariously stomped the Xenos. No need to worry about acid destroying the ship either as they weren't on a ship.
An extremely derivative film. It looks pretty. Practical effects looked good.
As a whole it's fine, just nothing special. Not very memorable. One of those movies I'll catch on TV in a few years time and have almost no memory of having watched it previously.
