Review Prometheus film review by Chris

Every great story must have a great beginning and with PROMETHEUS you certainly get just that. With such profound questions as 'Where did we come from?'; 'What happens when we die?'; 'Why are we here?'; 'Who created us?' It is evident that PROMETHEUS has a lot of expectations to live up to. The premise of PROMETHEUS is that humans were genetically created by an alien race of super-beings called 'Engineers'. These Engineers choose a planet which can sustain life and the Engineers then travel across the universe to it. From there, one Engineer must sacrifice himself by taking a mixture of Alien Bio-Former (a term that was adopted by fans) which essentially breaks down the Engineer's DNA. From there, the Engineer is destroyed and his DNA is spread to mix with that of the native planet. From there life is created and evolved to what we have become today. The questions posed in this story do not contradict science or religion as the most profound question is still left unanswered - where did the Engineers come from? This is never explained, and it is implied that we may see a glimpse of that in a sequel to PROMETHEUS, based on how the film ends. All in all, the film starts off very well, covering all the bases so the audience understands what is going on. We see fantastic footage of various parts of the Earth in its early stages of development. From there, cave paintings are discovered on the Isle of Skye which lead our scientists: Elizabeth Shaw, (played by Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway, (played by Logan Marshall-Green) to the next step in unlocking our greatest mysteries: TAKING PART IN THE PROMETHEUS MISSION TO TRAVEL ACROSS THE UNIVERSE TO A DISTANT GALAXY IN AN ATTEMPT TO DISCOVER THE SECRETS TO MANKIND'S CREATION. [center] [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/prometheus_screencap1.jpg[/img] [/center] [b]The Cast and Characters[/b] The cast was well-picked in my opinion. Noomi Rapace (Shaw), Michael Fassbender (David), Charlize Theron (Vickers), Guy Pearce (Weyland), Logan Marshall-Green (Holloway) and Idris Elba (Janek) all gave excellent performances and held substantial roles in the film. The rest of the cast also contributed greatly to the development of the plot. Considering the time frame of the film, the character development was fantastic and left me feeling satisfied with understanding each of their personalities. I should note that by far my favorite cast member was Michael Fassbender, who played DAVID. His role was probably the most difficult to get right. As an android, Fassbender executed every line and every gesture perfectly. David truly is remarkable. Not as 'friendly' as Bishop and not as neutral as 'Ash' - but a great mixture of a sarcastic, insightful, and a little bit sinister, personality. Would I call David the 'bad guy'? Not necessarily, but I would certainly say he is the one with the most secrets throughout the film - and a manipulative negotiator. There is definitely a lot more to David than what we see in PROMETHEUS! Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron also did a phenomenal job in this film. Noomi's character, Elizabeth Shaw, goes through quite a transformation throughout the film -- from being the soft spoken, shy scientist, to a take-control, kick-some-ass kind of heroine! Charlize's character, Meredith Vickers, is consistent throughout the film, and does a fantastic job at portraying that cold, dark, corporate suit. At times, I thought she might have been an Android - who's to say she isn't? I'm sure Captain Janek (Idris Elba) could give some insight to that (insert laughter); but still, it was never confirmed in the film and thus leaves me to speculate. [b]The Music[/b] I rather enjoyed the music score for PROMETHEUS. Would I have liked to hear the deep siren noises from the trailers? Yeah, but the music they chose worked well enough. To be honest, it reminded me a lot of Star Trek. It did fit the tone of the film for the most part, and I have nothing to complain about, except for perhaps a darker tone during some scenes and maybe a more profound tone for those revealing scenes could have heightened the suspense. The score did sound about the same throughout the entire film. But did it take away from my experience? Definitely not! [center] [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/prometheus_screencap14.jpg[/img] [/center] [b]The Plot[/b] The plot of PROMETHEUS was fairly evident from the trailers - a team goes to an alien world in an attempt to 'Meet our Makers' and, in the process, something goes horribly wrong. I rather enjoyed the plot - it has a great build up to the pinnacle moments and offers a lot of questions to ponder and discuss after leaving the cinema. During the film, David activates a kind of holographic recording where we witness a group of Engineers running away from 'something' - we never really find out what. We can assume of course, but that question was left unanswered. One interesting thing to note is that at one point, while David is inspecting the hieroglyphs on the wall of the Engineer Temple, we get another nod to ALIEN with David finding some slimy textured substance - much like the 'drool' characteristics we tend to find in every ALIEN film - a result from the salivating alien itself. So - could an alien have gotten loose in the Temple forcing the Engineers to abandon their stations? Or seek refuge until the beast was contained? Hopefully, we will find out in a later sequel! The introduction of the many different creatures was fair for the most part. I will go into more depth later on in this review, but as a quick sum-up, the black substances leaking from the Urns found in the Ampule Room had many different effects on what it came into contact with. It turned (what looked to be) earthworms into snake-like parasites which very much resembled a Facehugger, minus the legs. Unfortunately, you don't see very much of this alien for the rest of the film - I would have liked to see it spawn some new breed of alien from its host, but I guess that can wait for PROMETHEUS 2. The other affected host of the Bio-Former was Fifield who, as we all assume, gets mutated to be this psychotic beast which attacks the crew of the Prometheus. Evidently he's very hard to kill - but not immortal. In a sinister act, David pollutes Holloway's drink with the contents he found in one of the Urns, which he brought back to the Prometheus upon exiting the Engineer Temple. This scene stood out for me as a pinnacle moment - Is David acting out of 'anger' towards Holloway? Or was it staged? Hmmm. There wasn't much time from David's discovery of this substance to when he secretly infects Holloway with it, so I am assuming he did not like Holloway from the start and acted rather 'human' in his attempt to contaminate him. From that point, Holloway and Shaw evidently share a passionate moment, which leads to Shaw becoming infected with a new breed of alien -- a mixture of Holloway's infected genome and Shaw's own. It's important to note that Shaw was unable to have children of her own, so this comes as a very shocking and disturbing surprise to her when David informs her of her situation. More on this later in the Review. [center] [img]http://www.prometheus-movie.com/media/prometheus_screencap18.jpg[/img] [/center] [b]The Ending[/b] The ending, for me, was great. It shows just enough to keep you hungry for more, while reassuring you that your questions will be answered in a follow-up sequel. It would be absurd for Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox Studios not to pursue a PROMETHEUS sequel -- considering how they left the PROMETHEUS ending. [b]Prometheus Movie Review[/b] I won't give away too much of the ending, but it basically ends with Shaw and David leaving in another Engineer vessel to attempt to find out where the Engineers came from. How David knows this, I'm not sure, as it is not clearly explained. But regardless, it leaves us with an interesting conclusion. One thing can be said though - this is NOT a direct prequel to ALIEN - there is so much left to discover before we get to the events of ALIEN, which is what makes this such a great film! In conclusion, my verdict still stands as PROMETHEUS being a near-perfect film. It answers many questions we've had, and brings to light a whole new set which we can all speculate over for years to come. The level of insight, philosophy, and the ambiguity of this film is spectacular, and just what I wanted to see. PROMETHEUS is not only a great return to the Alien franchise; it is a fantastic start of something new! Ridley Scott has done it again and with such a brilliant cast and great writers, PROMETHEUS is one for the history books. It is a true masterpiece from start to finish, visually stunning and mindfully thrilling. PROMETHEUS exceeded my expectations and left me very hungry for more. I want to thank Ridley Scott, Damon Lindelof, Jon Spaihts, Arthur Max, the entire cast and 20th Century Fox Studios, for bringing back true science fiction and, finally, giving us a film which makes us think. I loved every minute and I am very eagerly anticipating the many sequels to come. PROMETHEUS has once again set the bar for what science fiction should be, just as ALIEN did back in 1979.