Isn't "Elizabeth Shaw" the woman who makes the Christmas mints? Anyway, here she's been persuaded by "Meredith" (Charlize Theron) to diversify into the intergalactic travel game with a trip aboard the eponymous science vessel. She (Noomi Rapace) is travelling with her boyfriend "Charlie" (Logan Marshall-Green) to a remote moon where there might be the glimmer of a clue as to the origins of not just our species, but of life in general. Their team, augmented by the android "David" (Michael Fassbender) arrive on LV-223 to discover clear evidence of a civilisation - well of engineering effort, anyway. Thing is though - has anything survived in the bleak and hostile environment and if it has - is it friend or foe. Now the visual effects are excellent across the board; the use of darkness, shadow, intermittent light and some marvellous creativity from Neal Scanlan and Conor O'Sullivan really do make this at times a menacing and compelling adventure to watch. Sadly though, it all takes far too long to get going, it recycles a little too much from it's parent film ("Alien") and there's just far too much chatter cluttering up the closing stages. The acting is competent, no more, and it could easily lose twenty minutes of preamble and ramble and just focus on the "can they survive" bit. This has got to be seen on a big screen. The 70mm print I saw showcases what this film is really about - a scary looking sci-fi horror that we've all seen in some guise before, but maybe not quite this technically proficient. Is it a reboot or a reimagining? I'm not sure we really needed either.
