Not bad...but a lot of unanswered questions

Rating: Null/10 (18 June 2012)

When i first heard about Ridley Scott making an 'Alien Prequel' I was very excited, I'm a huge fan of the original films (ignoring AVP1+2), and was excited to see where he would take this story of the infamous 'Space Jockey' and how we would perhaps end up seeing the birth of the Xenomorph! Well if like me this was your hope for the film..forget it right now. This is NOT an Alien prequel, at best you could call it a Spin-off' that utilises the same universe, and some crossover ideas, but that is pretty much where the links end. For one this doesn't even take place on LV-426 (the planet in Alien) so if you were hoping to find out how the derelict Alien ship crashes and what popped out that famous space jockeys chestYou Won't! Prometheus could stand alone as a fairly decent sci-fi film, but in all honesty it isn't one that in years to come you would regard a classic, and considering it is billed as a Sci-Fi HORROR, it isn't really that scary either. Lets start with the positives:  It looks Fantastic! If you do choose to see this in the cinema, 3D is a must. Ridley has captured a truly breathtaking vision of another world, you can almost feel the dust and blood floating around the theatre! The ship designs are also stunning, making you believe this is what future space explorers will look and work like.  Fassbender, Theron and Elba are great in this movie. Fassbender's depiction of 'David' the android aboard the ship is truly haunting, Elba's ships captain is a throwback to the 'space trucker' attitudes of the original Nostromo crew, and Theron is great as the cold 'Vickers' an employee of Weyland industries who always seems like she has a hidden agenda. Unfortunately this is about as positive as it left me feeling, the film is plagued with plot holes and unanswered questions (Ridley has announced a sequel so maybe these will come in time) however some of my major concerns and dislikes were: (May contain minor spoilers)  The creature designs are poor. Considering Scott said the original Xenomorph design was overused and no longer scary, what we got in it's place was in my opinion no where near as good. One scene in particular left me laughing at how ridiculous what I had just witnessed was.  Apart from the three listed above, the rest of the characters were pretty boring. Rapace as 'Shaw' is supposedly the backbone of this new story and to be honest I couldn't care less if she lived or died throughout the whole film – not a good sign.  Plot HOLES!! Not to give things away, but massive continuity issues when relating to the original film. Unanswered questions, Why was there only one engineer left?...we never find that out.. Why does David deliberately infect a crew member?...nope, no answer for that eitherWhy did the space jockeys leave a map that directs us to a baron dead planet rather than their home planet?...nope. And they go on, and on. Rest assured, love it or hate it, you will be discussing this film with your friends for weeks afterwards, disagreeing and seeing different meanings in the story. But if you go into this movie believing you are seeing an 'Alien filmyou will be disappointed.