The much awaited Ridley Scott return to the Alien franchise is finally out, and as a fan of the Aliens movies, I watched Prometheus with huge expectations. To say that there is a lot to live up to is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. And you know what they say about expectations, they eventually disappoint. Prometheus is director Ridley Scott's return to sci-fi films and the Alien franchise. Does Prometheus succeed or does it fail like the Titanic?
The year is 2089, and archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway find a drawing on a wall of a cave in rural Scotland.It isn't just any drawing on a cave, but it's a star map, pointing out to a particular cluster of stars. They see this as an invitation and an opportunity to meet our makers. They dubbed them the 'engineers' and they have seeded life on earth. The same image were found all over the world validating their opinion that this isn't just a coincidence.
Fast forward a little and the first human expedition leaves for LV-223, the planet that they traced the engineers to. Sponsored by the Weyland Corporation, the expedition is led by the archaeologists, and joined by mission director Meredith Vickers(Charlize Theron) and an android David who monitors everyone when they were in stasis for the long journey. Rather creepy android... but Michael Fastbender's character is rather underutilised and much of what he does is hard to understand. His motivations which get revealed somewhat mid way through the film still does not explain some of the things he does.
Prometheus is a bit of a throwback to old school sci-fi that doesn't razzle and dazzle much with fancy CG scenes. There's some big scenes but most of the movie is muted to amazing set designs that were clearly inspired by HR Giger, which was also something the Aliens series were known for. The mystery and the suspense is what makes this film a rather good film. Despite what I hear from others that have watched the film, I didn't find the horror elements to stand out like the Alien movies.
There are some truly horrific and gross scenes but these are not as numerous as the truly horrific Alien or the all out carnage of Aliens. It seemed to me that Prometheus has a bit of a identity crisis of just what type of movie it was supposed to be. Sci-fi suspense in the beginning with the potential for David the android to be a powerful dramatic character, quickly(well the movie is a bit ponderous in the beginning to be fair) turns into a horror film for a while and the big questions that were asked in the beginning of the film are erased from memory.
Prometheus makes much, or at least it implies that themes of humanity and believing in a creator are important questions that the movie tries to make some sense of in the context of discovering the engineers as our creators and the conflict of faith that Elizabeth Shaw goes through in the movie. Unfortunately it all amounts to nothing as it becomes a mission to save earth and to escape LV-223. Great actors and great characters(as well as some annoying ones) never really live up to the potential of their character. I know this isn't a character film, but there was potential for some really incredible and thought provoking scenes which never materialised.
Which is not to say Prometheus sucked... what was it I said about expectations again? This is clearly not Alien. On its own, Prometheus is a pretty good film. It's exciting, horrific at times, touches on profound questions(never quite offering solutions... more like teasers) and the ending promises a lot more. We'll probably see another movie that follows up on Prometheus. You are perhaps wondering if there are ties to Alien at all... and there is, even if it is a bit vague. It's a big hint on how things that happened in Prometheus affects the outcome of those future films, but the Xenomorphs(from the Alien movies) are still a ways off.
Prometheus is worth a watch for setting up an interesting story of its own. The Aliens fan will just have to accept that this is a very different direction from Aliens, offering its own experience that stands out from the classic Alien movies(as well as the bad ones). I definitely think that once the DVD for Prometheus is out, the Directors Cut and commentary would make for a particularly compelling viewing. I enjoyed Prometheus despite the huge expectations that it carried.
The year is 2089, and archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway find a drawing on a wall of a cave in rural Scotland.It isn't just any drawing on a cave, but it's a star map, pointing out to a particular cluster of stars. They see this as an invitation and an opportunity to meet our makers. They dubbed them the 'engineers' and they have seeded life on earth. The same image were found all over the world validating their opinion that this isn't just a coincidence.
Fast forward a little and the first human expedition leaves for LV-223, the planet that they traced the engineers to. Sponsored by the Weyland Corporation, the expedition is led by the archaeologists, and joined by mission director Meredith Vickers(Charlize Theron) and an android David who monitors everyone when they were in stasis for the long journey. Rather creepy android... but Michael Fastbender's character is rather underutilised and much of what he does is hard to understand. His motivations which get revealed somewhat mid way through the film still does not explain some of the things he does.
Prometheus is a bit of a throwback to old school sci-fi that doesn't razzle and dazzle much with fancy CG scenes. There's some big scenes but most of the movie is muted to amazing set designs that were clearly inspired by HR Giger, which was also something the Aliens series were known for. The mystery and the suspense is what makes this film a rather good film. Despite what I hear from others that have watched the film, I didn't find the horror elements to stand out like the Alien movies.
There are some truly horrific and gross scenes but these are not as numerous as the truly horrific Alien or the all out carnage of Aliens. It seemed to me that Prometheus has a bit of a identity crisis of just what type of movie it was supposed to be. Sci-fi suspense in the beginning with the potential for David the android to be a powerful dramatic character, quickly(well the movie is a bit ponderous in the beginning to be fair) turns into a horror film for a while and the big questions that were asked in the beginning of the film are erased from memory.
Prometheus makes much, or at least it implies that themes of humanity and believing in a creator are important questions that the movie tries to make some sense of in the context of discovering the engineers as our creators and the conflict of faith that Elizabeth Shaw goes through in the movie. Unfortunately it all amounts to nothing as it becomes a mission to save earth and to escape LV-223. Great actors and great characters(as well as some annoying ones) never really live up to the potential of their character. I know this isn't a character film, but there was potential for some really incredible and thought provoking scenes which never materialised.
Which is not to say Prometheus sucked... what was it I said about expectations again? This is clearly not Alien. On its own, Prometheus is a pretty good film. It's exciting, horrific at times, touches on profound questions(never quite offering solutions... more like teasers) and the ending promises a lot more. We'll probably see another movie that follows up on Prometheus. You are perhaps wondering if there are ties to Alien at all... and there is, even if it is a bit vague. It's a big hint on how things that happened in Prometheus affects the outcome of those future films, but the Xenomorphs(from the Alien movies) are still a ways off.
Prometheus is worth a watch for setting up an interesting story of its own. The Aliens fan will just have to accept that this is a very different direction from Aliens, offering its own experience that stands out from the classic Alien movies(as well as the bad ones). I definitely think that once the DVD for Prometheus is out, the Directors Cut and commentary would make for a particularly compelling viewing. I enjoyed Prometheus despite the huge expectations that it carried.
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