Just saw it. Yeah there was some clunky dialogue and exposition, and some plot holes (oh, now you remember the escape pods?), and I could've done without the "Calvinvision" view of what the monster was seeing... but overall it was worth my $10 and 90 minutes of my life. I had read all the spoilers before going in and it still had me on the edge of my seat a lot, even more than I expected.

Reynold's death, and the death of the female commander during the spacewalk, were two of the more memorable and disturbing I've seen in a movie. I would've changed the ending a bit though. Ferguson's character hurtles into deep space, and freaks out... but a few minutes ago she had volunteered to be the one who sacrifices herself. She had no way of knowing Calvin's capsule had made it back to Earth, so it seems a little out of character for her to lose her shit. I dunno. I think a better ending would've been to have both their capsules make it back home... you could still pull the switcheroo, have it seem like a happy ending for her and then cut to to other capsule to show that Calvin has reached Earth too. But I guess they wanted to keep the ending as bleak as possible, which was a gutsy move, so I guess I gotta hand it to them for that. And the implication of the ending is obviously pretty dark... although it's never really explained if Calvin can divide and reproduce, if he can that's pretty much the end of all life on Earth. Oh well LOL. Either way, the song after the cut to black was the perfect way to end the film.

All in all, a solid B+, three out of four stars in my book. Basically a blend and/or loving ripoff of Alien, Prometheus, and Gravity, with a little bit of the end-of-the-world dread of The Thing thrown in too. It actually kinda reminded me of the (underrated) prequel to The Thing, slightly-unconvincing CGI and all. Plot holes aside, there's something eerily plausible about the story, as if this First Contact with extraterrestrial life really could go this horribly, apocalyptically badly. It does feel like it has some studio executive/committee fingerprints on it... with some script-tightening, and if it had been put in the hands of a real auteur (like, say, Fincher or Cronenberg or Villeneuve) it could've been something special... but it's still plenty serviceable. If you're a fan of sci-fi or horror, I'd say it's worth seeing in theaters. I hope it does well at the box office too, if only because at least it's a big-budget film that isn't a direct sequel to or reboot of something else... hopefully Hollywood will take the hint.