Arriving on the barren rock, the crew are soon investigating an enormous dome containing familiar H.R Giger-y corridors and large humanoid head sculptures, before slowly coming to unravel parts of the mystery behind the alien Engineers and their relationship with humanity. As a lifelong fan of the Alien franchise, Prometheus is effective at what it's trying to achieve. We certainly get satisfying and plausible answers about how the aliens were created, alongside the film's own grander concerns. Indeed, compared to the quartet of existing Alien movies starring Sigourney Weaver, Prometheus is on an entirely different scale—with ambitions and concerns that are truly Epic. For that reason alone, this movie feels like a different beast (less intense monster horror, more existential action-adventure), but there are nevertheless enough antecedents to Alien to get fanboy hearts racing—most notably the return of familiar set designs and primordial versions of the classic "facehugger" and "chestburster" critters.
You can't wholeheartedly discredit Prometheus for stapling this bold theory to the Alien mythos, because it works well and there's ample room for unexpected flourishes. Despite having so many promo's, virals, and trailers flooding the internet this year, Prometheus still has surprises up its sleeve, while Scott proves he's still without equal when it comes to breathing life into fake movie universes. This is a considerably more advanced-looking film than the Alien's that follow it chronologically, but the disparity isn't too jarring. That's a testament to how ultramodern Alien was in 1979, because many of its designs are replicated for 2012 and don't look or feel antiquated. That said; wow, the Nostromo had some seriously retro computers compared to what trillionaire Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) was able to fund years earlier, right?
I don't really want to say much more, for fear or giving too much away. Suffice to say, Prometheus looks and sounds sublime (even the 3D was immersive and gave the sets greater tangibility), and the acting was on the whole very good—particularly from man-of-the-moment Fassbender, who bests Ian Holm and Lance Henriksen's versions of a "synthetic" character, with his courteous yet disquieting performance as David. Rapace was also very charismatic as a correlative of Ripley (even wearing the same white underwear at one point) and provides the movie with another of the saga's strong female characters.
Still, this is a strong start that hasn't done the unthinkable and exhumed Alien's corpse to rewrite movie history for the worse. Co-writer Lindelof is a confirmed hater of how George Lucas desecrated Star Wars with CGI-enhanced Special Editions and emotionally hollow prequels, so he's avoided fiddling so much that Prometheus unravels the magic and portentousness of Alien. That classic movie still works after seeing this prequel... although you'll perhaps now watch all the Alien movies with a deeper understanding of The Company's perspective, and, perhaps more regrettably, with a less puzzled expression over that "elephant man and his telescope".
And that's the thing with prequels: in explaining unspoken back-story, you lay bare what some of the audience found compelling and thought-provoking to begin with. Fortunately, it's a tricky balance act that Prometheus mostly pulls off without sullying Alien's good name.
directed by Ridley Scott / written by Jon Spaihts & Damon Lindelof / starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green & Charlize Theron / 20th Century Fox / 124 mins.
