Prometheus – Film Review

If you go into Ridley Scott's Prometheus expecting xenomorphs, facehuggers, and chestbursters...you will straight up be disappointed. It is, in fact, a prequel to his 1979 classic Alien, but in another way, a 'spin-off' of the Alien franchise. This review does contain some spoilers.

 
The film focuses primarily on the "Space Jockey", the big dead guy in the cockpit on the derelict ship, that the crew of the Nostromo encountered before they stumbled on the organism that spawned 3 sequels and 2 non-canon crossover films featuring The Predator.

 
The film takes place 30 years before the events in Alien. The opening scene (which is one of my favorite scenes of the film), shows Earth around the Cambrian Period, which is a beautiful sequence of landscapes which finally shows a disc-shaped spacecraft near a waterfall and a humanoid creature left behind to sacrifice himself. He drinks a black liquid and dissolves into the water which becomes the first human DNA.

Then forward to the year 2089 on the Isle Of Skye in Scotland where two scientists, played by Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green, discover a starmap in the form of cave paintings which they believe hold the key to humanity's origin. Then it cuts a couple years later to the scientific ship Prometheus, named after the Greek titan who was punished and cast from Mount Olympus by Zeus for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humanity.

The android David, played by Michael Fassbender, monitors the ship while the crew is in stasis and enjoys the epic film Laurence Of Arabia. He models his look after T.E. Lawrence and even quotes some of the films lines throughtout the film. The crew arrives on the distant moon LV-223, not LV-426 (the moon in the Alien series), to discover the origins of humanity. Once they arrive, they discover things and all hell breaks loose.

Normally, my reviews have no spoilers so I will stop there. I went into this film not expecting a straight up "prequel" to Alien. There have been many negative reactions to this film regarding the plot and not having any facehuggers and chestbursters. I didn't want something I've already seen before. I was hungry for something new. With Prometheus, I got just that. Stunning visuals, good characters and questions unanswered. If you remember, Alien had a lot of unanswered questions. The best performances come from Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba and Noomi Rapace. There is definitely a setup for a sequel or two. Ridley Scott has even said that it will take 1 or 2 sequels to tie it in to Alien. It's a fun ride, it had it's nods to Alien and even Aliens if you really pay attention. It was also cool to see the Space Jockey and the derelict ship operational.

Go see this movie with an open mind and don't expect something you have already seen. This is more an epic sci-fi film than a horror sci-fi film. I can't wait to see it again.

3.5 stars out of four