It's Alien, Jim but not as we know it.

Rating: 4/10 (9 June 2012)

Ridley Scott's Alien-prequel is like a Christmas present sitting under a tree. Attractively wrapped it promises to be the present you always wanted. But come Christmas morning as you begin to unwrap it, it quickly dawns on you that you haven't received the Playstation 3 you always wanted. Sure the box says it's a Playstation but once you open it, it turns out it's another knitted jumper from Grandma. As any fan of Alien will tell you, Prometheus concerns the large humanoid, or "Space Jockey" seen at the beginning of that film. Ever since that memorable scene fans have wondered what it was and why it was there. Well, after watching Prometheus they're still wondering. This film probably sounded better when the producers discussed it around the production table. Sadly the end result simply doesn't work. There are too many needless characters, too much bad dialogue and not nearly enough thrills or suspense that Alien and Aliens gave us in spades. Poorly written, this mishmash of ideas turns out to be a sheep in wolf's clothing. The premise (I hesitate to use the word plot as there isn't really one) concerns an expedition to a faraway world to discover the possible origins of mankind. When our explorers reach the planet of LV-223 (not LV-426 featured in Alien and revisited in Aliens) they discover several large structures in a barren wasteland. It soon becomes apparent that the giant humanoids were our ancestors (surprise surprise) and the large structures are in fact alien vessels - the doughnut shaped ship from Alien being one of them. Our intrepid explorers find out they these humanoids were wiped out by some kind of biological weapon that they created and wished to destroy the Earth with. Soon things go down the tubes and, just like in Alien, there is only one female survivor. Why the giant humanoids were planning our destruction is not explained - though we can speculate, nor is the nature of the biological weapon, which appears to be a forerunner of the alien creature. In fact several things are not explained at all and all this does is leave you with a sense of disappointment. In fact it's no better or worse than the laughable Alien v Predator films. Michael Fassbender is amusing as an effeminate robot and Charlize Theron looks smoking hot as the ice-cool corporate suit from Weyland Industres. You'd be better of watching Stargate.