A returning mess

Rating: 7/10 (14 March 2020)

This review contains spoilers.
Prometheus is a science-fiction movie that premiered in 2012. The movie is directed by Ridley Scott and written by Jon Spaihts, and Damon Lindelof. The movie stars Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender. A mysterious star chart is found in Scotland that is interpreted as an invitation from humanity's forebearers. An expedition is put forth by the Weyland corporation to investigate the planet.
Prometheus is an incredibly messy movie. This movie has many problems in its writing that served to hinder audience enjoyment of the movie. These problems were the characters of the expedition doing increasingly dumb and non-sensical things. Among these were a biologist that was scared of centuries old corpses. The biologists should not be scared of this finding and it felt incredibly out of place. The biologist should have been willing to investigate the corpse further. However later when the same biologist finds an aggressive mutated snake, the biologist is willing to antagonize it. The movie failed to provide this character with consistency. Somehow a geologist that was able to create a map of the facility got lost such that they were stuck inside of the facility. This made no sense and could have been written better.
The movie also does not explain any of its elements well. The movie leaves a lot to mystery and suspense. Audiences expecting answers to the creation of the Xenomorph from the Alien movies will be disappointed here. The movies does not explain it although a proto-Xenomorph is present at the end of the movie. The creatures found in this movie resemble creatures found in the first Alien movie. However the movie does not elaborate on any of the Engineer's motivations. It offers a simple hand wave and action for the audience to come to their own conclusion. In this way it is similar to the first Alien movie with the audience and Ripley encountering the Alien and not understanding its biology or life-cycle.
The movie does play to its leads incredibly well. Noomi Rapace and Elizabeth Shaw and Michael Fassbender as David the Android do a great job in their respective roles. These two characters hold up the whole story and it was a good decision of casting the actor and actress. The characters are fun to watch and they have the best scenes in the movie.
The movie is tense and exciting. Ridley Scott is able to achieve a level of excitement and tension in the movie across its 124 minutes of running time. The movie is gorgeous and well shot.
I would recommend Prometheus even with its flaws.
Grade: C