Prometheus

The search for our beginning could lead to our end

PROMETHEUS (15)

D: Ridley Scott

20th Century Fox / Scott Free / Brandywine (Ridley Scott, David Giler & Walter Hill)

US 🇺🇸 2012

118 mins

Science Fiction/Horror

W: Jon Spaihts & Damon Lindelof

DP: Dariusz Wolski

Ed: Pietro Scalia

Mus: Marc Streitenfeld

PD: Arthur Max

Cos: Janty Yates

Noomi Rapace (Elizabeth Shaw), Michael Fassbender (David), Charline Theron (Meredith Vickers), Idris Elba (Janek), Logan Marshall-Green (Charlie Holloway), Guy Pearce (Peter Weyland)

Prometheus is a film which very much split audiences as well as critics. Sold on the premise that it's a prequel to the Alien movies, with Ridley Scott back in the directors saddle, it is and it isn't in equal measure. At the very least, it's closer to the original 1979 film than the Alien vs Predator shit.

There's a lot of things left unanswered here and has quite a few plotholes which might irritate, but is enjoyable if you watch it on its own merits.

A group of scientists discover the origins of a life form which turns out to be what became known as the "Space Jockey" from the original Alien film and within the vast spaceship, gain entry to a vault that harbours deadly organisms.

A big bone of contention was that, while Alien was set in the distant future, the huge creaking spaceship Nostromo had an austere and bleak atmosphere about it, whereas the Prometheus spaceship in this movie everything is modernised, glitzy, super high tech, well-lit and nothing break down, a stark contrast to the original Alien movie.

I did enjoy this movie though, at its heart it had a very interesting idea and the original Alien movies were paid a respectful homage. The visual effects are very good and the makeup effects are simply phenomenal.

Prometheus as a standalone film doesn't really work, but tied into the original Alien films it could be appreciated as a loose genesis tale. There's much left as an ambiguous mystery, but the film wasn't totally deserving of the hate that it received, though it's perfectly understandable why a lot of people didn't like it.

6/10