Prometheus Review

Big things have small beginnings.

Full review by Isaac Handelman

At times, Prometheus feels uncannily similar to Alien. Admittedly, Ridley Scott’s return to sci-fi and the 1979 sci-fi/horror masterpiece have quite a bit in common: a director, a genre -- heck, they even share a universe. Contrary to all of this, Scott has been quick to shut down speculation that Prometheus is simply an Alien prequel. Despite Prometheus’ cosmetic similarities to its spiritual successor, Scott is absolutely just in this claim; Prometheus explores some intriguing lore and brings up a few biting emotional questions, neither of which Alien was created to explore.

Describing Prometheus is difficult without giving too much away. The film follows the ship Prometheus on her voyage to an undiscovered planet, which a few archaeologists have reason to believe contains secrets of our creation. After a somewhat slow start, their expedition goes horribly wrong, and the team of seventeen crew-mates find themselves fighting for their lives, something their scientific research team was never meant to do.

Among those along for the ride are Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), the duo of scientists who made the initial archaeological discovery, as well as David (Michael Fassbender, delivering another fantastic performance to boot), a likable android with questionable intentions, and Vickers (Charlize Theron), overseer of the expedition and a skeptic of Shaw and Holloway’s theories. It’s here where you can see the film’s similarities to Alien beginning to mount -- it’s a ragtag group of shipmates, on a high-tech vessel in an alien world. And, of course, there are aliens. 

However, Scott seems well aware of Prometheus’ narrative similarities with his previous work, so instead of letting that dumb down the experience, he adds layers of depth to the tried-and-true setup. And, believe it or not, it works just fine. Never along the way did I question how the film would end, but that's just fine because Prometheus’ intention is to take you along for the ride, and to provide some surprising food for thought along the way.

That’s right. This time around, Scott doesn’t go all for tension, scares and claustrophobia. Prometheus has a philosophical agenda in place from the very start, stemming from Shaw’s slightly under-explained, but nevertheless interesting childhood questions about creationism and what happens after you die. We get the feeling early on that Shaw’s determination towards finding out how the newly discovered alien species ties to human origin spurred form a much simpler desire to simply know where we came from.

It’s in this vein that Prometheus separates itself from the rest of the pack. The entire film exudes an aura of mystery and, ultimately, discovery. These feelings are known to draw us in; after all, “Where did life come from?” is the ultimate question for many of us. And while Prometheus doesn’t provide the definitive answer to this question that many will seek going in (in fact, it may leave the viewer with more questions than they had at the start), it puts a wholly original spin on a traditional question that’ll keep viewers attentive all the way through.

Unfortunately, not everything in the film matches the pristine vision of science-fiction artistry that some are undoubtedly seeking. It never quite manages to achieve a tangible sense of scale or scope outside of its immediate setting’s constraints, and most of the scares don’t go too far beyond the traditional “Hey what’s this?” “I don’t know, let’s get closer to it -- [gruesome death]”. There are a few notable exceptions to this rule, a few truly spine-chilling, gut-wrenching moments (no pun intended), and there's many-a-scene ripe with tension, but as a whole, Prometheus, while still commonly labelled as a sci-fi/horror film, only fully embraces the former. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it will disappoint those hoping for anything that matches Alien in terms of sheer terror. 

So, where does all of that leave Prometheus? The film finds itself in a slightly awkward place. It has to please longtime fans of Alien lore hoping for a return to form for a brand that’s suffered heavily from franchise fatigue, but it also has to attend to a new generation of viewers who want to be immersed in Scott’s sci-fi universe without having seen the other films thirty times. Luckily, Prometheus pulls off this tough balance with surprising grace. It’s not perfect, often asking more questions than it’s fit to answer -- and, for those wondering, no, it probably won’t be held in the same classic standings as Alien thirty years from now -- but ultimately, the result of Ridley Scott’s long-awaited return to science-fiction is unquestionably successful.

Final Score:

7.5/10

“Very Good”