very average sci fi

Rating: 5/10 (24 September 2012)

I was looking forward to seeing Prometheus, being a big fan of Ridley Scott and, particularly of the Alien series.
The production values of this film are superb (big budget, fantastic special effects). If thats what you are looking for, you won't be disappointed.
The thing that really frustrated me is that Prometneus is like a remake of the first Alien movie. I won't get into plot spoilers, but the parallels are consistent throughout the film, and so much of the earlier film's content is 'borrowed' here, its difficult to watch this as a film in its own right.
Not sure why it was so derivative. The basic story line (creation myths, the question of where humanity came from and why we exist) lends itself to all sorts of interesting possibilities that the sci-fi format would have been ideal to explore.
The main intention seems to have been to explore the origins of 'Alien', which in-and-of-itself, also, could have made for very interesting viewing. Pairing this with the creation question leaves enormous scope for developing fresh ideas and some interesting cinematic experience.
What has been done here is, though, to have taken some of the core content from Alien, and to deliver it to a new generation of cinema-goers. Its been 30+ years since it was made. I think the writers were banking on the majority of the audience having not seen the original - there is so much content reproduced here its hard to understand it differently.
My suggestion if you haven't seen this film, is to watch without looking for anything new.
So much is replicated here that the end result is quite banal, and will disappoint viewers looking for interesting or fresh content.
As a formulaic sci-fi romp though, its a couple of hours of reasonable escapism.