This section will be spoiler free. I will post my spoilery thoughts below and give fair warning, if you want to respond to spoilers please do the same.

So.

There was so much hype about it, and I know in some cases that can be a bad thing, and apparently for some people it was, but for me, surprisingly, even though I was incredibly hyped up and excited and had high expectations, it pretty much met all of them and I came out of the cinemas feeling exhilarated.

First of all, I don’t think it was ever confirmed anywhere that this was a full on Alien prequel. In fact I think Ridley Scott said in an interview specifically that while set in the same universe at a previous time it wasn’t necessarily a prequel. I think we fans just thrust that expectation upon the film. I liked not knowing whether it was or not. It made it exciting and mysterious and made watching the trailer more interesting to try and see whether it was or not but not wanting to and not being able to know until the movie.

So. In saying that. I felt like, true to the neither confirming or denying it being a prequel, it was in my opinion both a prequel and not at the same time. And at first I personally think it worked. I have since thought more about it and realised some discontinuities on the prequel side of things. However the movie as a whole and the non prequel side of things were, though also flawed in some ways, visually stunning, exciting, terrifying, funny, engaging, shocking, thought-provoking… everything you’d want from a sci-fi movie, basically.

The build up was great and I know people are saying the second half or climax was messy but I didn’t think it was. I thought the pacing was great and it was exciting and just everything. I don’t know how else to put it. I was on the edge of my seat for most of it. I was clawing at the arms of the chair. I jumped. I laughed. I sort of screamed. I wanted to clap, though it wasn’t that kind of audience. I covered my eyes (though peeked through my fingers). It was just a fucking great movie experience.

It was just so intense but in a good way.

Michael Fassbender as David was fucking fantastic. I can’t really say that any other way but he was so good that I didn’t even see it as “Michael Fassbender as David”, I just saw it as “David”. He was witty and sassy and has morally unclear motives. It was just amazing to watch. I felt like Noomi Rapace’s “Elizabeth Shaw” had the spirit of Ellen Ripley in her.

It was deep and thinky but still had that typical Aliens horror to it, but it was a lot more graphic. Perhaps unnecessary and definitely not for the faint of heart but I’m not going to count it as a negative, just pointing it out. Some shit gets pretty intense.

As I said it’s visually stunning and I saw it in 3D at IMAX and while the previews and count down made my eyes feel funny they were absolutely fine for the entirety of the movie and it didn’t detract from my viewing experience at all. I’d like to go see it in 2D as well to see how it compares but I have no complaints in the 3D department just yet. I thought it worked really well for this movie.

I will post about those discontinuities I mentioned below with a spoiler warning.

So what did you think? Was it what you expected? Were you satisfied or disappointed? It seems to have really divided people in their reactions.

Topics: film, movies, cinema, review, science fiction, aliens, reviews, alien, critique, prometheus