Review

Archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway have made a breakthrough that could change the course of human history. In the remains of various ancient civilisations they have found the same image, a giant humanoid pointing to a five star configuration. There is only one location in the known universe that matches the representation, Shaw and Holloway want to go there to meet the beings they view as our "makers". Enter Weyland Industries, a few billion dollars later and they are on their way into the darkest recesses of space aboard the research vessel Prometheus.

After a voyage of over two years the Prometheus makes planet fall and it's time to meet the locals. Naturally, with the Weyland Company involved there are going to be some slight changes to plan. Peter Weyland, the dying head of all things commercial has hidden himself aboard and seeks a way to prolong his life, Meredith Vickers has other corporate goals, and David the resident android also has a separate agenda. Can Shaw and Holloway survive the myriad plots going down, and just what will they find in an artificial structure they discover once the Prometheus lands on Alien soil. They are indeed about to meet our makers, but are those makers going to be happy with the uninvited guests? Strap your pulse rifle on, we're going in!

So Prometheus was my most anticipated movie of the year and naturally this caused me no end of concern as I wondered if I would over hype myself for the flick. Were we about to get another Alien or a Aliens vs Predator: Requiem? To be honest I was going to be happy with something in between and the possibility, if the box office does the right thing, of future additional movies slotting into the franchise. On the bright side of the moon we had Ridley Scott returning to the universe he helped create, on the dark side there was Fox Studio who are notorious for sticking their executive oars into an Alien production, which normally spells doom and gloom for the movie watcher. Scott had promised a return to the Alien universe but not the expected prequel to the first movie. The veteran British Director was more interested in the "Space Jockey" and just where he might have been going. So did I get what I desired or did Fox look into a mirror again and ask "who is the lamest studio of all"?

First up Ridley Scott lied, this is a prequel to Alien, you even sort of get a face hugger and a sort of xenomorph, just not the prequel you may have expected. Added spice for dissent here was that there appear to be a few glaring inconsistencies between Prometheus and Alien, more on those later. So I was more than happy with this aspect, hell yes, we wanted to know all about the "space jockey" and we found out exactly what we wanted to know, though it should be said we are also presented with a myriad of new questions. We even get to find out where the xenomorphs came from, though not the origins Black Horse et al had envisaged. Trying to avoid spoilers here kids, but also trying to cover my alien-geek arse. Go see the movie to get your cinematic answers, and stop looking at my crutch yo!

So how was the actual movie you might be wondering about now - glad you asked. As one would expect from anything from Ridley Scott the cinematography was amazing, epic, and full of wow moments. Prometheus is filmed on a grand scale, with limited use of CGI. We caught the 3D version, only cinema time the team could get together, hit a few shandies at the local dive, and still catch a screening. Actually considering it was happy hour and we had to really throw back those two for one drinks it was lucky we could find the cinema. Okay where was I, the 3D version, got to say one of the best underused 3D experiences I've even clocked up at the flicks. Scott doesn't rely on poking things at the screen and lets it happen naturally, besides the funky glasses underlying the high ticket price it was easy to forget the movie was in 3D. So unless you really love 3D you can quite happily catch this one in your normal theatre and speed your savings on overpriced cokes or something. About the only advantage I noticed from the 3D was a depth to the film frames that helped put me into the alien environment.

So the background really notches things up and provides a rich viewing experience, loved me the dust storm, but Scott isn't done. The interiors of both the Prometheus and the alien structure rock the house down. You can readily believe the technology aboard the Prometheus, though perhaps there's a bit of wasted space that wouldn't match the economics of the whole thing. The Nostromo in the original Alien was far more believable to be honest, though I guess Scott has been catching up with Star Trek and wanted to go all academy or something. The alien locations really did rock however, the set designers really got their Alien on producing sets that while being exotic and menacing still maintain a recognisable "derelict" aesthetic. I was grooving to the Alien referencing in the designs.

Ridley Scott sends down the best Alien franchise movie since Cameron declared war on the xenomorphs

I was also all over the use of models and props rather than simply going to the CGI rendering. Scott delivers a good old fashion Sci-Fi film and isn't going Avatar at any stage. Okay going to say it, Scott nails his movie while Cameron delivered a flick that makes you go hmmm.

The actual plot had me high fiving individual team members and this weird dude that decided he should have company in case things got scary. Rather than simply throw a bunch of stuff up on the screen in order to notch a movie there's a butt load of themes and concepts in the mix to lift things up above the usual amusement park of broken promises. We cover religion and the meaning of God, faith and belief, and the whole "what does it mean", from multiple angles. There's a darker undertone to things that perhaps wasn't developed as much as it could have been, if humans are the genetic descendants from an older race, then for sure we inherited that race's warlike tendencies. I really dug David, the android, who mirrored Shaw and Holloway's journey to understanding of their condition and purpose. Without giving the game away bottom of the ninth, the final scene really underlines the theme of the movie, while of course giving us a starting point for a sequel.

Out of interest Writers Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof heavily hit the religious angle Vincent Ward based his original screen play for Alien 3 around. Don't worry you don't have to dial into this aspect, it comes at you but is bubbling away in the background rather than being the main course in front of you.

I guess the major aspect of the movie that Alien fans will want to know about is the creature designs. The "space jockey" race is well constructed and provides one of the shocks of the movie. They were not what I expected, but worked like a brought one in the context of Prometheus. The creature feature aspects rocked, but don't expect your traditional xenomorphs, the cargo of the derelict craft in Alien is explained to the fullest, yet once again won't be what you expected. I actually really appreciated the explanation for this and the underlying reason for Idris Elba and crew going kamikaze on us. You do get a xenomorph, but it's like a stage of evolution toward the alien drones we are more familiar with. Scott's team of designers hit a high note with the creature designs, I was really digging this aspect of the movie.

Scott naturally gets the best out of a stellar cast as he goes heavy on the science orientated Sci-Fi nature of Prometheus. Noomi Rapace nails it as the Ripley orientated Elizabeth Shaw who wants to meet the "engineers". Rapace has this strong vulnerability thing happening for her that works like a wild night out in the Cross for the role. I've not caught a lot of Michael Fassbender's work to date, but was really appreciating his always aloof performance as the android David. Rapace and Fassbender work as mirrors of each other's motives in the movie. Charlize Theron (Meredith Vickers) and Idris Elba (Janek) are always on and don't disappoint here.

Gorehounds are going to be baying at the moon over this movie. There's a lot of gore and claret being thrown around as things go pear shaped. One scene in particular is going to stick with you far after the closing credits, Scott almost hits the high of the chest burster scene in Alien with a caesarean operation that ends with what looks like staples closing a major wound. A lot of the audience around me were looking away when this scene played out.

In terms of atmosphere and tension, Scott once again nails things. Two of the crew are left in the alien structure overnight, we know this isn't going to end well, but Scott strings it out as the victims find a bunch of dead bodies, learn there's a living organism two klicks from their position, and learn exactly what the containers in front of the giant face contain. Considering we're all waiting on the tie in to Alien Scott has his tension on in the second half of the movie. To be honest when the end credits rolled I wanted to watch the movie again and then catch up with Alien. Excellent referencing of the earlier movie, with a lot of visual clues going down, Prometheus is a dense movie fill of re-watchable factors.

Okay there are some weaknesses to the movie that didn't overly impact but did have me wondering if some more time could have been spent in Production. The science doesn't hang together if you think about it too much, perhaps a major issue for those people who have to dissect movies to the nth degree. Get over it folks all movies start to shake and fall apart if picked at too much. I also thought the underlying themes kind of got lost in the backwash of the full on action that shatters your comfort zone in the second half of the movie. As mentioned at the start of this review the continuity with Alien isn't as strong as we might like. Actually one of the discussion points we had over a chilling beer after the movie was why the "space jockey" wasn't in the chair with the gaping chest wound that we see in Alien. Slight spoilers here folks go to the next paragraph if you don't want to know … you have been warned … a cool sequel would have the Preds arriving on the planet, gathering a queen alien, and for some reason we didn't get to putting one of the already dead giant aliens with the burst chest in the chair. Fox can contact us with a large cheque if they want to go down this path, we're ready to consult over here.

Prometheus proved to be one of those movies you walk out of needing to talk to people about. It's both awesome and finally a decent entry in the Alien franchise after a number of misses. I was enthralled and for once had my anticipation meet and surpassed. As I remarked to anyone who was listening after the movie, Prometheus will really work for Alien supporters but perhaps not so much for those who champion Aliens. Ridley Scott throws on a serious science fiction movie with all the horror elements you might want, and makes it work. This is a must watch movie for fans of the franchise, and could well be your second or third favourite entry in the series.

Before wrapping this review I have to throw out my thoughts about the prologue scene, wonderful scenery going down there by the way. My take on it was that it involved the creators of the "engineers" introducing DNA into the local population, though other members of the team had other interpretations. For mine, witness the completely different craft design, the saucer seen over the top of the waterfall, and the focusing on mutating DNA strands. As Rapace's character remarks during the movie, who made the makers, who is God? Actually a good point was raised by Rob, one of our mob, a certain site that claimed to know the plot through a leaked script got it completely wrong hence proving they simply constructed the plot from the same trailers we all got to groove to prior to Prometheus being released. While the title of the movie would indicate something stolen from the Gods, the reality was the title stood for scientific striving for things beyond our understanding, waking dark punishments for stepping into the realm of the gods, figuratively are our livers to be eternally eaten by the xenomorphs?

Okay I've said enough, full recommendation, go catch the movie at your earliest convenience. For sure I will be getting me another screening, and probably noticing a bunch of stuff I missed on opening night, and will no doubt invest in the DVD/BR when it is released later in the year. I'm pretty stoked to be honest, with everything said and done I'm going to throw Alien on the player and get my groove on all over again. Ridley Scott make another movie already, I'm there opening night Bro!