Good but far from great

Rating: 3/10 (18 October 2012)

I have high expectations for any high-budget sci-fi film when you consider the best ones are done on a shoe-string. And on paper Prometheus has real promise; Ridley Scott, Aliens (though not as we know them), a strong if not quite A-list cast, and special effects to rival the very best; whilst I can't even think of a more highly publicised film this year thanks to relentless ads on every internet page I frequent. Yet throughout the film it felt rushed, pre-dictable and uninspiring, with unimaginative forgettable scripting and boring characterisation. All in all it's a big boxed Christmas present that turns out to be nothing more than an empty CD rack. You fail to bond with the lifeless characters (ironically Fassbender was the most convincing!) and care very little for the events that befall them. When a character can have a self-initiated C section one minute and then run around the ship the next, it loses all credibility you know you don't need to bother suspending disbelief at whats in front of you any longer. And whilst you do feel the occasional sense of peril, there is no longer-lasting sense of terror, or any paranoia that the creature crawling up your leg is indeed a face hugger rather than the less intimidating family pet. The film labours unnecessarily on Elizabeth Shaws religious orientation (which was almost in the vein if Dana Sculley in the X files), when you consider that the whole premise of this film is that humans were created by alien engineers not God. Does the film really need to ask the bigger question - did God create the alien engineers? This film is full of ambiguity, which actually works in it's favour as it gives you the opportunity to fill in the story with your own ideas and form great talking points. However this is spoilt when the writers decided that an alien autopsy would reveal that human and alien DNA was identical. Come on! As if that's the big revelation we've been waiting to hear in this (or any) film? Would it have been so difficult to suggest that the alien DNA was merely similar to human DNA and imply that (and perhaps more plausibly) we originated from the same source, and leave our quest for knowledge and understanding of the mystery of our own existence in tact? On the plus side you do get a John Hurt moment in this film, but sadly not a memorable chest-exploding scene that actually made some cast and crew sick on set in the original Alien. This film is just a bit limp compared to Ridleys best work. The Peter Weyland character is irksome. First of all, he's meant to be over 100 years old but the makeup is so terrible he looks more like 200 years old which isn't very acceptable in a high budget film. And to be honest Guy Pearce did not play the character very convincingly and is probably the weakest link in the film. The film would have been far better without the Weyland character and plot - as if aliens were going to give him the gift of life in the vein of an Indiana Jones film. Noomi Rapace almost looks like a young Sigourney Weaver but the similarity ends there and isn't strong enough to be the leading character. Altogether the film needs to be longer (perhaps a cynical directors cut DVD will follow), with greater character and plot development, some hard core alien gore and some memorable scenes that will send shivers down your spine. It's a film to watch once, but that really is it.