Review of 'Prometheus'

'Prometheus' is a 2012 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof. The film stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron. It is set in the late 21st century, and centers around the crew of the spaceship Prometheus as they follow a star map discovered among the remnants of several ancient Earth civilizations. The star map leased them to a distant world and an advanced civilization, the crew seeks the origins of humanity, but instead discovers a threat that could cause the extinction of the human race. I was extremely excited for this movie, Ridley Scott did an amazing job with 'Alien', the possibilities of where 'Prometheus' will take the audience are endless. This is Scott's first science fiction movie in over 30 years! Warning, this review contains mild spoilers, but nothing that reveals the story.


I'm going to begin by stated by do not assume that you know what is going to happen just because you have seen 'Alien', I was constantly looking for things from 'Alien' and by the end, my mind was blown, I was speechless, confused, because it travels so far away from 'Alien' that it could get away with being its own movie. It's astonishing!


You most impressive thing about this movie is its appearance, it looks amazing! Scott has great vision and is really good at getting that vision across to the audience. I saw this film in IMAX 3D, and I have to say it's one of the best IMAX experiences I've had. The sets in this movie are huge in scale, and in a world where in big budget films, full skill sets are so rare with the advancements in CGI, so its nice to find a director that is still willing to put time and effort into having sets constructed. It's easier on the actors and I think real sets always look better on screen. The effects used look so unique, by that I mean that a lot of them look so out of place on  sets like the alien ship, the effects used to make the alien holograms looks so out of place they look, alien. There is one particular scene where David is on the alien ships bridge, where the holograms blew me away, the 3D may not be full on popping out the screen, but it makes things look realer than I've ever seen in a film, and in this scene, the colour, the sound, it all comes together to make a mesmerizing ordeal.


Moving onto the acting, Ridley picked a good cast, Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green have great on screen chemistry. Guy Pearce is quite good as Peter Weyland, however he does look ridiculous in the make-up used to make him look older, obviously he looks better as Weyland in the viral advertisements that were released prior to the film where Weyland was much younger (so basically the make-up let him down butbhis performance was quite good. Fassbender is as amazing as he always is. His method of playing a robot butler is flawless, throughout the franchise he is my favourite android. Just like with 'Snow White and the Hunstman', I didn't really like Charlize Theron, she did better than she normally does, but I felt like her character was a bit bland. The rest of the cast all perform quite well, some not getting a lot of screen time, which is to be expected with any film.  I really liked Noomi Rapace as the lead role of Doctor Shaw, she puts huge amount of emotion into her performance and really makes it believable. So just like with 'Alien', he's picked the right people.


The most important part of this film is the story, so little had been released regarding the plot of this film, the trailers gave away hardly anything, and it turns out that everything they do tell us, isn't as it seems. The story doesn't disappoint, it stays relevant to the original film, but at the same time, wonders off on its own path. The score works really well too, coinciding with the story telling us how to feel. The score helps to reinforce the scale of everything we see. 


My only complaints about this movie are that it's quite slow,  it starts slow, and for the most part it stays slow until the important parts come along. The movie is made in a similar style to 'Alien', it goes back to traditional science fiction horror, the franchise took a turn into action adventure after James Cameron's 'Aliens', which I'm not complaining about, it was a really good movie, but its nice to see a return to the origins. A return to the style that Ridley Scott revolutionized science fiction with.


At first I was quite disappointed that it didn't link completely in line to set up for 'Alien', but now that I've had time to think about it, I understand why it doesn't, and it's because it may be a prequel, but Scott never wanted it just to be another 'Alien' movie, he intended it to be its own film. He throws us a few bits that look like 'Alien' and then at the end we think we're going to see something we've seen before, and then he baffles us all. A sequel is already on peoples minds, during the March 2012 WonderCon, Scott stated that the film leaves some questions unanswered, and that these could be answered in a sequel, saying "If we're lucky, there'll be a second part. It does leave you with some nice open questions". Lindelof was asked if a sequel would be a direct prequel to 'Alien', he said "if we're fortunate enough to do a sequel...it will tangentialize even further away from the original 'Alien'". A few questions is an understatement to say the least, I would be really happy to see a sequel, but I don't think it could go any further away from 'Alien' without ruining it. The whole films actually acts like a pre-prequel, a prequel to the prequel of 'Alien'.


THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH CONTAINS BIG SPOILERS!


I think the biggest mistake of the film was having the xenomorph like creature bursting out of the Engineer's chest, I reckon they through that in purely to keep the 'Alien' fans happy, it isn't the films proudest moment. Also I think many won't like it because they were expecting 'Alien', but it is clear we are at least two films away from it. Also I have to make it clear, it is on a different planet to 'Alien'! This film is set on LV223, 'Alien' and 'Aliens' is set on LV426. They're a long way apart. So the space jockey at the end of the film isn't the one we see in the pilots chair in 'Alien', I think that much is clear by the end of the film when he survives the crash of his spaceship and travels to get revenge on Shaw. The trailer tricked us into thinking it was a direct prequel. 


So overall it is an amazing achievement, visually it is fantastic, but there was so much hype for this movie, that when I saw the final product, I had such great expectations for this film that I couldn't help being slightly disappointed. I know how crazy that sounds, but either way, it is still a cinematic masterpiece. There's just a few things that could have made it better, and to be quite honest, it would have been better if he'd cut all ties to 'Alien'. 


I'm going to give 'Prometheus' an 8/10.