A watchable failure

Rating: 6/10 (31 July 2013)

Firstly let me say that my favourite film of all time is Bladerunner and I think the Alien franchise contains some of the best sci-fi ever made so to say I was looking forward to this is an understatement.
Created as a kind of non-direct prequel to Alien, Prometheus tells the story of a group of scientists who go on an expedition to discover 'Engineers', an alien race that the group believes could hold the key to the origins of humanity.
On board are Shaw and Holloway who are fronting the project, along with a team of geologists, biologists and a cyborg named David, played by Michael Fassbender. Shortly after they arrive, naturally things take a turn for the worst and after a positive opening the film begins to decline in quality and slowly descends into a misguided, muddled mess.
The opening twenty minutes are overall quite positive, as always Ridley Scott's design and look are stunning, from the suits to the ship to the tech, everything drips with a logical coolness which is the films most redeeming feature. But the films ultimate downfall is in its lack of understanding of its genre.
The main problem is that the movie has to be horror even though it wants to be sci-fi, because of its heritage the plot requires leaps and devices to produce tension that makes no logical sense in the world it creates,and you quickly feel that it can't quite decide where to go or ultimately what it wants to say.
On the positives the look and design as I said before are breathtaking at times, and Michael Fassbender steals the show as David, seeming to be the only character who was given enough thought to be well rounded enough.
In spite of a lot of problems it is definitely watchable if only for its good looks, but it's a shame that some simple plot issues and two dimensional characters weren't given as much attention as the design as this would have definitely made this movie a lot more satisfying.