Prometheus is an entertaining, adult Sci-Fi epic with some dark overtones. It is not a horror film crafted for scares. It's not a last stand of against the space bugs crowd pleaser. It is not a bleak, sombre portrayal of a heroine's death. Nor is it a gory, tongue in cheek space adventure on the perils of cloning. It is Science Fiction action for the thinking audience and, considering how diverse the group of films it is a part of is, how anyone can suggest it doesn't fit is beyond me.
I had a lot of information going into my first viewing of Prometheus and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. The 2hr run time flew by. I knew the plot and I still had fun. I was afraid I'd cringe at certain scenes and they ended up playing fine. The film is so dense with story and visual stimuli that you can easily be swept up in it.
It actually made me happy, when the film ended, that I'd seen a film that had been designed with adult science fiction fans in mind. It is beautifully refreshing alongside Transformers, Battleships and all the dumb super hero films that muscle opposition out of the cinema nowadays.
Noomi Rapace plays Shaw, a scientist of spiritual faith, whose backstory is revealed as the plot advances. The character is complex and well-acted, to a level I'm afraid many viewers will overlook. Her strength is on the inside, she is not aggressive or assertive in a standard movie heroin way. Her partner is Holloway, played by Logan Marshall Green. In contrast, he is aggressive and assertive, which ends up working against him and Shaw. Though this couple shares a similar dream – to meet our makers – their reasons for believing that our makers exist is different. Further, though this couple's dream and their discoveries act as a catalyst for the plot in the film, their actions do not drive the events.
Events in the film are driven by David, a synthetic human played by Michael Fassbender. David is by far the most engaging character in the film. Much like his and his father's source of inspiration – TE Lawrence – David is torn between covertly serving his creators and understanding the technology of his creator's creators.
Charlize Theron's character Vickers' icy exterior is played in contrast to Idris Elba's Janek, whose relaxed, boyish exterior hides a dominant, determined strength. I could buy it entirely when Janek sacrificed himself to save human kind. I could also buy that his flight crew would stand by him. He was that kind of guy, a likable Alpha male. His charms were enough to win Vickers over, a woman his flight crew were enamoured by, so it made perfect sense that they saw Janek as 'da man'.
Sean Harris' Fifield and Rafe Spall's Milburn humanise early scenes with humour, becoming more 'people' in a mentally overwhelming situation than attempting to do their jobs. This brings me to something I appreciated in the film, the actors play people and not a believer, scientist, doctor, geologist, biologist and so on. Were Spock and Bones engaging because they were a scientist and doctor or because they were characters that reacted to situations in their own way?
Main Characters aside, I'll move onto the story. You can't get more epic in scope than who made us and why are we here. It's also a question you can't really answer because that answer is likely going to be different for each individual. Prometheus does not answer the question, well not fully, anyway. It answers with ideas.
Who made us? Statuesque blue humanoids from space called the engineers. Do we see them explicitly make us? No. Is it implied? Heavily. Why did the engineers make us? It's not entirely clear, what is clear is that the planet they 'invited' us to became a weapons installation around 2000 years ago. Did they plan to destroy us? The implication is yes. Why didn't they? Something went wrong. What? The implication is their weapon got out of control. What is their weapon? The creature from Alien is definitely related to it, if not the ultimate form of it.
If this plot seems too obscure for you, you will likely be annoyed by Prometheus. But ask yourself, what did you really love about Alien? Did you ever know exactly what the creature was as Ridley presented it? No, you didn't, Cameron turned it into a bug with a life cycle. Where did that creature come from? An egg, on a ship, with another alien thing. That is all you ever knew.
After Prometheus you know that the other alien thing is humanoid and related to a race that likely made us. You also know that the humanoid thing may have made the alien to destroy our race. It's actually a fairly neat closure. Explains why the xenomorph is so anthropomorphic. Explains why the SJ had such sad humanoid eyes. Explains why Weyland corp was so interested in the life form as a weapon – it's the weapon that our gods made!
In some ways, Prometheus is closer to Alien than any other film in the franchise. In other ways, it is totally different. By itself, it is an intelligent Sci Fi adventure that is fun to watch.
Was some of it cut? Most likely. It seems some gore was trimmed for a PG rating it never achieved. This just makes me want the Blu-Ray more.
My rating for it increases the more I think about it. I'd give it 85% now and I can't wait to see it again to find out if that rating increases. One of the mates who saw it with me has already expressed they are keen for another viewing and, considering I have no doubt it is the best thing showing ATM, why the hell not?
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