Want to love it but can't

Rating: 5/10 (20 October 2012)

It's so tricky to do something in the same spirit of a much loved franchise that was conceived over 30 years ago. The Star Wars and Predator movies showed that there is potential to cheapen the original films if you go the wrong way with it and the only film from recent years that I can recall having done right by it's original version was the recent prequel to The Thing. Although Prometheus is not really a prequel as such, fans of the original Alien films will still be mindful that this film is set in the same universe and Scott pays direct tribute to the first 2 films on more than one occasion here. Alas, Prometheus falls very short when it comes to establishing the brooding atmosphere and timeless vision of the future that the first films did. There are a few problems here not the least of which is the clunky writing, tacky musical score and paper thin characters that seem to be merely cannon fodder, not to mention conflicting filmic allusions to the origin of the famous Xenomorph creature. I understand that Scott changed his mind halfway through filming about the thrust of the story and it shows in that there are far too many loose ends left unresolved and some glaring contradictions in the plot; one such contradiction being that the 'Engineers' would already seem to know of the Xenomorph species (Holloway spots a mural depicting what looks to be a Queen Alien on a chamber wall) but at the film's end we're shown an early version of the creature that looks similar but different to the Geiger design. The film reminded me of Predators in the way that it was so enamored with the legacy of it's predecessors it forgot to do anything interesting or, in this case, coherent with it's own story. Couple that with the fact that, despite some of the gorgeous visuals, the actions of the characters and their dialogue consistently make this film feel cheap. The infamous scene where one character (supposedly an elite Biologist) attempts to make friends with a potentially dangerous alien organism (we can see the scare coming a mile away) feels like something you'd see on a late night, direct to video B Horror film. What a shame.