Breath of fresh air for the "Alien" universe

Rating: 8/10 (10 June 2012)

I first heard about this film earlier in the year, and being a long-time fan of the original trilogy (hated the 4th), it caught my interest a bit. I say "a bit" because it was nothing but let-down after let-down for the last 15 years or so. After "Resurrection" and two "AVP" movies, it seemed that Fox had completely lost any respect for the original films. However, as Ridley Scott was directing this, I had to check it out.
I went into this movie with caution and the understanding that this was not necessarily an "Alien" movie although it's a part of that universe. When I left the movie I was stunned. It didn't suck, and in fact, it was quite good! In my opinion, Prometheus brings this franchise, universe or whatever you want to call it back from the brink. Fitting that the director who created it is the one to resuscitate it. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here. I'll just put in my quick two cents.
The concepts and story behind the engineers was fascinating and answered a few questions but also raised others. Some have complained that they didn't get it or they didn't explain everything but I think that's a good thing. Seems to me that movies are better when they don't spoon feed you the answers. The visuals, set design and effects in the film are amazing and create an atmosphere that's authentic to the original films. The CG in the film was difficult to spot most of the time which means it's not in your face and distracting (I did not see it in 3D, not a big fan). I think that most of the actors did a great job (as most have already said, especially Michael Fassbender) and the dialogue for the most part was believable and natural. Modern sci-fi seems to almost always suffer from poor dialogue, bad acting and over- reliance on CG, none of which was a problem here.
It's not without it's flaws. There are some very illogical parts of the film which do detract from it but not enough to destroy everything else that was done so well. One scene in particular stands out, which I'll hint at and try not to spoil. One particular person in the film meets a most unfortunate end when they suddenly throw caution to the wind and seem to think they're at the petting zoo (you'll know it when you see it). But I guess the same could be said of the scene in "Alien" when Kane clumsily looks into the egg. Also, later in the film the protagonist is up and moving around after what would seem to be a pretty painful procedure. So there's a few things that don't make much sense but if you don't over-analyze it it doesn't detract from the overall scope of things too much.
Anyway, if you're a fan of the original films go see it with an open mind. If you're not easily offended by opinions on human origin and don't go in expecting to see a modern version of 1979's "Alien" or 1986's "Aliens", I think you'll enjoy it. I for one am glad to see Ridley return to science fiction and to see the "Alien" universe finally get a more serious entry once again.