Plot
In the not too distant future of 2089, scientists, and significant others Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway discover ancient drawings that could lead them to discovering the humanity’s beginning.
Weyland Corporation CEO Peter Weyland hires them to travel to a far off moon known as LV-223 – in order to discover the secrets to long life from the “Engineers” that seemingly started mankind.
There, along with a crew of the spaceship Prometheus, they slowly piece together that ‘all is not as it seems on the planet, and their fight for survival begins.
Direction
Ridley Scott, director of the original Alien film all the way back in 1978 directs here.
Cast
Noomie Repace plays Dr Shaw. She is fine, but a little bland and forgettable. Considering how strong the female lead was back in the original film, I wanted more from her.
Charlize Theron is a strong supporting character as Meredith Vickers. She is the ship’s owner essentially (and then revealed to be Weyland’s daughter). She has quite possibly the stupidest character death in all of cinema history… seriously, you could have walked either to your left or right and been fine!
Michael Fassbender plays David, the android who is assigned to the Prometheus ship. He is essentially the antagonist of the film, serving Weyland’s commands.
Idris Elba plays Capt Janek – the captain of the Prometheus – he is okay, but his fake American accent is quite frankly… terrible, and it goes from his natural British, to Texan, to something else in one sentence. Sorry Idris, stick to your native British.
Other cast include Sean Harris as Fifield, Guy Pearce as Weyland, Logan Marshal-Green as Holloway. Rafe Spall, Kate Dickie, Benedict Wong and Patrick Wilson also have small roles.
Breakdown
Once again we get a stand alone Alien film, which is set many years before the events of the first Alien film…
This expands on the mythology of the Aliens we have seen previously, and it also includes further tries to expand on human creation.
There is of course the usual ‘cannon fodder’ cast, where it gives the audience another ‘one by one’ they die trope, as the crew of the Prometheus fail to survive their mission. Some are more silly than others, especially those who could have just… you know, run to the left or the right of the large rolling spaceship coming at them!!!
There is some usual cliche moments as well, especially as soon as they get to the planet a large ‘space storm’ engulfs their ship – which separates the team from one another, and in turn causes the loss of some of the team.
The expansion of the “Alienverse” is good, but this doesn’t over “feel” like an alien movie of the past. There are little of the alien like creatures we have seen in the past. They still are present on screen in some scenes (such as Shaw’s pregnancy that she graphically ends – a very well choreographed sequence) and then towards the end.
David is an interesting character within the story, as he is seemingly pleasant, but secretively a villain – working against those on the ship, and the cause of some of the deaths that occur.
I felt too much information is thrown at the audience too quickly in the third act (such as the previously believed dead Weyland is actually still alive and on board the Prometheus, he is also Meredith Vickers father – and that the Engineers are planning on exterminating life, instead of creating it… phew…
Like previous films, it leaves an open ended ending with Shaw being the ‘last man standing’ so to speak, I sure hope she doesn’t get the Newt and Hicks treatment…
Overall
Solid prequel to the Alien franchise, with yet another bunch of disposable characters.
Some ‘so so’ performances (sorry Idris), a somewhat bland lead (sorry), and some truly terrible decisions that have spawned one popular YouTube channel to coin the phrase “The Prometheus school of running away from things”…
Still watchable despite these flaws.
3.5/5
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