Deeper then it appears

Rating: 8/10 (12 November 2012)

On the surface, Prometheus is a reasonable back-story to the movie Alien. if you are at all paying attention, it adequately explains who and what the giant pilot in the spaceship was and why the Alien eggs were on board. The adventure/horror story is fairly run of the mill. At times its a bit predictable and at other times its a bit silly (sometimes both at once.) As a space adventure movie it stands up reasonably well, if not being nearly as taught and tight as Alien was.
If you focus exclusively on this however, you will miss the real depth of this movie. What is of real interest here is not so much the enigmatic aliens and what they are up to, as much as the humans in the story and their motivations and reactions. I'm going to break that down below, so fair warning, it comes with spoilers.
The quest of the Prometheus is repeatedly stated by multiple characters as one to "meet our makers." What this means to the different characters is evidenced in their reactions to events and is the core question of this movie-- why do we seek divinity and what do we expect from it? For a science fiction film, this is actually a deeply theological piece.
The first scientist,Charlie Holloway, is supremely depressed when they initially think all the "engineers" are dead. He reveals that his big goal was to talk to one. To stand on an equal footing with his creator and show him how far we had come. To him, this is a chance to prove us, and by extension himself, as the mature equals of those we might consider gods. Although one might accuse Charlie of hubris, I prefer to see this as an urge to "come of age" as a species.
Peter Wayland, the enigmatic founder of Wayland corporation and the sponsor of the mission, seeks the answer to mortality. To confront it and to defeat it. To that end he built a humanoid replica of himself in the Android David, but just creating something that mimics himself that could live forever wasn't enough. He wants to defeat death for himself.
What is death and how can we overcome it is a common reason humanity looks to divinity and religions have answered that same question in many different ways over the course of human civilization.
They key to understanding Elizaberth Shaw, the second scientist, is the revelation through the movie that she lost both of her parents at comparatively young ages and she herself is wrestling with her own infertility. She is looking to her makers for meaning. Why do bad things happen. What is the purpose? Do we do something to deserve it? Again, a common theological question. She ends the movie still seeking the answer to that question from her makers.
The last, and in some ways most interesting character, is the character of David. In part he is the Greek chorus. He stands outside of human questions and desires. In his comment "sometimes one must destroy in order to create", he dares to suggest the most unpalatable answer of all-- that our makers care no more about us one way or the other then we might about the bacteria in a petri dish. Something to be grown, examined, and then thrown away to make way for the next experiment.
The only thing driving his actions for most of the movie are the orders of his own creator. His only true wish, we discover in the end, is to be free of them. The quest for autonomy from our creators is embodied in him.
In the end, this is a very interesting film dwelling in the place where psychology and theology meet. Just as an action film, its probably a 6.5. As i mentioned above it is certainly not as tight as Alien was. But it is also far more ambitious in content. Add in the deeper meaning and musings and I think it deserves an 8.