After a slow start, things suddenly pick up before reaching a suspenseful, but familiar, climax. With the exception of one brief harrowing sequence, the fist portion of this film moves quite slow. While this would be the ideal time for character building, it’s used more for sci-fi imagery. Spacewalks, equipment checks, and tech talk are the focus. Only one character has any significant backstory established. When things finally go south, and they do fairly quickly, it’s hard to care too much as bodies start piling up and nobody is established much beyond being a soldier or one of the other characters spouses. Things slow down again briefly to introduce the film’s villain, whose motivations aren’t quite a clear as they should be. The final action sequences are fine, but by this point it’s fairly obvious who will survive and who will not. Even the final twist can be seen a mile away. Aside from filling in a bit more on the origin of the Aliens, and nothing new on the Engineers, we have the same basic “Aliens” plot we’ve seen before.
**1/2 out of *****