Inside every giant squid-like alien, is one hell of an adorable gargoyle calling the shots!

Rating: 4/10 (16 June 2012)

No matter how much he and his fellow scenarists deny it, Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus' is very much a souped-up update of Scott's 'classic' 1979 sci-fi horror show, 'Alien'. The film begins with a cryptic scene set during pre-historic times when a space traveler (who looks like a muscle-bound 'Mr. Clean' with pasty skin) drinks a dark liquid concoction that causes him to disintegrate. We find out later, that quite incredibly, the traveler's disintegration causes a biogenetic chain reaction, which is responsible for the origin of life on earth,
Cut to 2089. Archaeologist couple, Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway, make a new discovery of an ancient cave drawing that's similar to other cave drawings already discovered, pointing to a distant moon where Mr. Clean might have come from (these humanoids are dubbed 'Engineers'). Cut to the Prometheus, a giant spaceship financed by multi-billionaire Peter Weyland, CEO of the Weyland Corporation. Weyland is played by Guy Pearce, made up to look like a senior on his last legs (despite a ton of prosthetics, the make-up department ends up managing to turn Weyland into a clone of Biff Tanner from 'Back to the Future, Part 2').
Weyland gives the Prometheus crew a pep talk after they wake up from suspended animation, except he's a hologram. We're told by Vickers (Charlize Theron) that Weyland had a few weeks to live before the Prometheus took off but it turns out that he's been in stasis in private quarters, off limits to the rest of the crew. Weyland can't accept the idea that he's soon going to kick the bucket and hopes that the Engineers will restore his youth. Boy is he in for a big surprise!
Before the ship arrives at its destination, David the Android house sits while crew members sleep in their pea pods. David, designed by Weyland, has a mind of his own and a nice British accent to boot. He keeps himself busy before the crew wakes up by studying thousands of obscure languages and watching old movies. For some reason, David doesn't seem to be programmed to obey orders and ends up digging around for clues by himself once the crew lands on the moon.
Despite all the neat special effects, 'Prometheus' is saddled with one clichéd character after another. Holloway, the archaeologist leader, is the skeptical scientist who's contrasted with his lover Shaw, the 'believer', who is still bent on finding out the 'meaning of life' at film's end. Holloway is virtual cannon fodder after David infects him with the dark liquid seen earlier. Holloway proves to be thoroughly expendable when he becomes a virtual Zombie and Vickers must torch him to death with a flamethrower, to prevent him from getting back on the ship. Theron's Vickers, who turns out to be Weyland's daughter, has no interest in alien first contact and is a most unlikeable, one dimensional villain. Like Holloway, she's easily disposed of when she's crushed by the Engineer's disabled ship, during the denouement.
The bulk of the action takes inside a giant cave which turns out to be the Engineer's spaceship. Crew members Milburn and Fifield, decide to run back to the Prometheus after they're spooked by all the bad vibes inside the cave. As there is no discipline amongst the crew members, they're allowed to abandon their colleagues and promptly end up getting lost. Of course they're the first ones to be dispatched by the alien monsters, squid like creatures completely reminiscent of Scott's '79 'frightfest'.
Scott must have reasoned that audiences today still want a taste of that old 'Alien' magic, so Milburn and Fifields' demise must go the usual route of having the creature's tentacles reach inside the victims' bodies (through the mouth) and then having them subsequently disemboweled from the 'inside out'. But wait! Scott must up the 'ante' and then does so by having Shaw impregnated by an infected Holloway. Since she's now got an alien embryo in her belly, she's informed by David that she's now three months pregnant after one day! Not to worry! Set your self-service 2093 surgery machine on automatic pilot and let the device remove the nasty creature for you. Just make sure you give yourself enough shots of morphine, or whatever pain-killer does the trick!
It turns out that David has discovered that one of the Engineers is still alive, inside one of those pea pods inside the cave. When they wake him up, the crew members who went back into cave (including Weyland), have to deal with the humanoid's 'anger management' problem, which they didn't count on. Everyone is killed and David gets his head ripped off (don't worry, he's somehow still able to think, talk and communicate!).
It's not enough for the director to channel 'Alien' but why not a dose of 'Alien vs. Predator' while you're at it? That's essentially happens when the surviving bad-guy Engineer takes on the giant squid-like Alien, in a fight to the death struggle. Guess who wins?
Leave it to Shaw (the aforementioned true believer), to want to go off to distant places, in an attempt to extract an explanation from the Engineers, who seemingly gave humans life but then changed their minds. As Shaw jets off with the help of David, one wonders why Shaw seems to ignore all the unpleasantness associated with her first encounter with the surviving Engineer. Is there any reason why she wouldn't get her head ripped off, during a second encounter with these baddies?
If you're going to see 'Prometheus', it's for the special effects and not the characters. There's actually some neat visuals in this film, including a wondrous sandstorm and a star map highlighting Earth. But in the end, most of this stuff we've seen before. One thing I did learn from 'Prometheus' is that inside every giant squid-like alien, is one hell of an adorable gargoyle calling the shots!