Prometheus Movie Review:
Release date: June 8, 2012
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast & Characters:
Noomi Rapace Character Name: Elizabeth Shaw Crew member, archaeologist. | |
Michael Fassbender Character Name: David (Android) Crew member, android non human, AI, ship maintenance, science officer and interpretator. | |
Charlize Theron Character Name: Meredith Vickers Crew member, supervisor and employee of Weyland who is funding the operation. | |
Idris Elba Character Name: Janek: Captain of the Prometheus, fearless and tough. | |
Logan Marshall-Green Character Name: Charlie Holloway: Crew member, archaeologist. | |
Guy Pearce Peter Weyland: The billionaire founder and CEO of Weyland Corp who is in charge of the operation. |
Get Detailed information about Prometheus here:
My movie review is based on watching this film twice not so long ago. Watched on TV so maybe some of the best scenes were not as well received as on the big screen. It had a lot of hype and lots of people were looking forward to its release in 2012. There is lots of interest in alien films and also movies from Ridley Scott a top director.
We knew this movie was part of the Alien films (the ones that star Sigourney Weaver) and it serves as a Prequel, so the movie takes place before the first Alien movie (see here for the trailer) and the events in the movie lead upto and set the scene for the Alien movies. The first Alien movie was made in 1979, but now we have better technology and concepts about sci-fi. So some people might be comparing the science they see in Prometheus and seeing how that is in line with the science in Alien movies. The first Alien movie looks quite outdated now and cheap compared to Prometheus .
If you are expecting to see the familiar black acid blooded aliens in Prometheus you will not find them. Instead we have others.
The movie starts off showing a humanoid Alien which is diving straight in and setting the scene and interest, who is he, where is he, what is he doing. It gets the attention of the viewer as this is a different Alien than what we have seen in Alien movie or AVP movies.
After this we see some archaeologists on earth finding some markings made inside a cave, which they interpret as a star map. An expedition is then planned to go to one of the moons shown in order to get some answers about mans creators or history. The name of the ship which is to transport the crew there is called Prometheus.
When the crew reach there they know very soon that they were not the first there, they find structures and buildings. They land and send a team inside one of the buildings, the captain and others stay behind in the ship. Inside they are amazed and excited to find a giant human like had and lots of cylinders. After a while they find decapitated bodies of aliens. These aliens are the so called Engineers who are the ones who were mentioned in the star map.
They start mapping the inside of the building. The crew decide to return to the ship and encouraged by news of a storm heading there way. But two members get lost and get stranded in the building. The others return to the ship. But David the android has secretly brought back something from the building. It contains a black liquid. He decided to add a drop to a drink which he gives to a crew member Holloway. Holloway is in a relationship with Shaw, the female lead character, who ends up becoming unexpectedly pregnant as a result, however the baby will not be human. So this is the result of what David added to Holloways drink. Hmmm. this substance must have a very quick mode of action as it passes through his digestive system and excreted via fluids to Shaw in no longer than a few hours…. Well it is extraterrestrial so who knows…
Well we find some nasty things going on in the building with the two trapped crew members….They decide to carry on exploring as you would…they stumble across more cylinders but this time they find the mysterious black liquid that starts oozing out the cylinder…..what is this stuff? They get curious, and as they say curiosity killed the cat. And likewise they are both attacked by this liquid which seems to evolve or take different forms. When the storm settles the crew return and find them dead, being attacked by something. They decide to carny on looking around and David finds a special chamber where he finds a living engineer alien who is sleeping in his pod. Holloway becomes ill, because of the “poison” given by David. It seems his DNA is changing and as a result he is becoming like an alien, becoming stronger and aggressive. They return to the ship but Vickers (Charlize Theron) refuses to let the ill Holloway onto the ship due to contamination risks. She then torches him with a flamethrower….a bit extreme, probably would have been more appropriate to lock him up in the ship. More likely thing is that a ship or crew on this sort of expedition would have protocols for dealing with contamination, just that this seemed a bit extreme. We know it was because of David giving him Alien fluid, that caused this, but he doesn’t tell Vickers, I am also not sure if he does this as he is told to or his own curiosity, he is an Android but does he have free will, i’m not sure.
Shaw meanwhile realises all is not well and there is an Alien inside her. She manages to get it out, the scene is quite graphic and hey presto baby alien, which has come out in less than a week inside her. So these Aliens grow and develop very fast. These are not like the black aliens we see in Alien movies. She traps the alien in the ship. We also find the CEO of Waylands is on the ship, an old frail man who is looking for a cure for his ageing, but how was he to know that he would find a cure here, going off just a star map. Is it safe for elderly to travel in space, dont they require strict good health etc…
The crew decide that the building is part of an alien military base and they also find a ship. They also decide that the black liquid is a biological weapon with the ships target being Earth.
He is a forceful character and he takes the team back to the alien building again. David has told them about the live engineer alien so they think this is it, the big revelation and moment of truth they all been waiting for. What actually happens shocked me I didn’t expect it as we the big strong Alien rip David’s head off. So these guys are not friendly. After some fighting they kinda regret waking him up as it seems he is going to fly the ship off back to earth with the black liquid (kinda like the liquid we see in X-Files). But Shaw tells Janek who in turn brings down the alien ship by flying fearlessly into it! Whoa, as that totally necessary…Maybe they could have followed the alien ship or headed back to earth and warned then asap, and tell earth to nuke the alien ship.
Shaw survives but so does the Engineer Alien. Luckily the baby alien ironically saves his mothers life by killing the Engineer. Shaw retrieves Davids head, which funnily enough still talks and functions. He makes a deal where he tells her there are other ships. The film ends with them flying off to the Engineer aliens home planet. This sets us up for the next sequel to Prometheus.
Overall its a dark well made movie, staying true to the Alien movies, where there is a lot of frustration between the crew members. We also see this in the other Alien movies.. There are lots of special effects and we get to see an Alien world and new aliens. We find out they are more intelligent to humans but want to kill us. Maybe they aren’t happy with how we turned out. This storyline will not fit in with religious people who believe we are made by God not aliens, but we have to remember its just a fictional movie with no basis in reality. I like the character of David and sure he will be there in the next movie. Im not sure it was right for Shaw to fly off solo to the Alien home planet seeing that she knows they are not friendly, would have been better flying back to Earth…. maybe its just curiosity or act of frustration. I would have liked to have seen it a bit longer with bit more storyline build-up as this is meant to be the first Alien movie to set the base for all the others. The acting overall is good, but would the lead character role not have have been played better by Charleze? I’ve watched it twice and probably would watch it again with great interest again. You always pick up something new each time you watch it. The question i still am not sure about is who made the star maps and why was it the engineers?
I found other interesting Prometheus related questions and answers here: