Prometheus – an almost review.

I’d better start off with the usual warning that I’m going to spoiler the crap out of this so if you haven’t seen it and are planning on seeing it in the near future then don’t read anymore.

Prometheus is loosely linked to Alien, and is helmed by Ridley Scott, a winning combination in many eyes including my own. It’s set at the end of the 21st century as a group of scientists and engineers head out on a two year snooze to the Earth-like planet that they believe spawned us. As a fan of the Alien films I was filled with a childlike sense of glee at the setup, the slow build towards the inevitable action, a cyborg who loves Lawrence Olivier, brilliant. It should be noted that the cast are strong throughout. It’s nice to see Roomi Napace doing something other than kicking dildos up people’s arses. Charlize Theron in a catsuit is worth the ticket price alone and Idris Elba holds his own as the ‘no shit’ captain. The problem I had with the film once I had fully digested it, was how everyone seemed to have an alternative agenda for the trip.

The scientists wanted to disprove Dawinism, Weyland (Pearce) wanted to meet his maker before he met his maker, David (Fassbender) seemed to just like touching buttons and it all got a little bit lost. As soon as the masks started to fall away the film did as well, interesting little character stories fell by the wayside as Scott just matched on for guts and glory. Don’t get me wrong visually it was absolutely incredible, and scenes harked back to the wonder of the original Alien and it’s noteworthy sequels but this felt confused, like Scott was trying to keep too many people happy at once and not really getting the message across.

I’m not saying its a failure because the alien pregnancy scene is still replaying in my head in much the same way that John Hurt’s alien belly does from the original, but there is just something that jars about it. It’s worth a watch regardless.