Back to the beginning and back to basics, sort of, with Ridley Scott delivering an Alien prequel of some worth.

Rating: 7/10 (8 June 2020)

For whatever reason, I cannot quite say whether or not I love "Prometheus" as a piece of awe-inspiring science fiction; merely appreciate it as a decent bit of B-movie story-telling, or ultimately feel it is lacking in too many departments to really like at all. It is a curious place to be, made more-so by the fact I have seen the film a number of times over the course of about two years, and do not seem to tire of it; yet, would in no way describe it as a personal favourite.
I hold no absolute brief for 1979's "Alien", nor its 1986 sequel, though I enjoyed both of them tremendously. I am not the sort of person who owns little models of characters and creatures from the franchise so that I might perch them on my shelf or desk; my bookcases are not lined with comics related to the series. I do not fawn over the 'lore' of these particular films, nor feel personally violated if something is added to it which is of a markedly poor stature - I come to something like "Prometheus" with a clean slate in this respect.
On the one hand, Ridley Scott's 2012 prequel to the series he initiated with the aforementioned "Alien" is a rollicking, and particularly good-looking, genre-movie whereby a crew of people explore a barren planet deep into space and find more than they bargained for. On the other, it is a piece of some considerable stature which looks at the role of religion in our world and what it means to be human at all: a contemplative piece about ideas and that all-too-rare animal, a 'event' movie with scope. In the end, I think it quenches enough of either stall without settling for being too much of one or the other - there exist far more complex-a science fiction films, yet this is a long way from mere standard fare.
"Prometheus" opens on Earth at what is, it later transpires, the moment life itself began. We begin with a montage of prehistoric vistas, a recurring image of which is the ground itself which seems to conspicuously harbour artery-like patterns. A muscular being, slightly akin to a human in appearance, consumes something which has a wretched effect on his well-being, causing him to collapse into a nearby river, terminating everything including his DNA strands. When this is all outlined to characters later on, one of them berates it for ignoring centuries of Darwinism; the joke here, I think, that Darwin estimated life began in water to some extent anyway.
Millennia later, in 2089, an archaeological dig involving our eventual protagonist Shaw (Noomi Rapace), and her partner in both life and work Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), sees them uncover ancient cave paintings, from which it is staggeringly deduced that the interplanetary beings of the opening have left a message asking humans to come and visit them. Not long after, we are back on familiar territory; this discovery acting as the cue for a team of scientists under the auspices of the Weyland Corporation to blast off to LV-223 (crucially, NOT the locality from "Alien") to find both the creators of life on our planet and the answers to tough questions: Why were we made? What is our purpose? Where do the creators themselves come from?
The film finds a healthy place between being far away enough from "Alien" without replicating it, but not too far so as to feel totally detached. There is a decent amount of both creature-feature and body-horror element, but the piece has its own story to tell - its own axe to grind. Like "Alien", a droid, in Michael Fassbender's David, is present, although unlike "Alien", it is made obvious to us much sooner. Twists and narrative reveals play a role in later events; there are some genuinely unpleasant moments, but it is not a freak show.
The film is driven by Rapace's character. We are made aware of her sticky history with religion; bereavement and faith, something which has consumed her enough to seek those who seemingly made us. What is at stake is not death by monster, although that sort of thing does rear up, but her own spiritual well-being in her unquenchable thirst for answers: the exterior threat in this instance being the spectre of an existential black-hole.
Her partner, Holloway, is fairly poorly written, but David, wonderfully portrayed, is sinister without being evidently malevolent - there is a certain efficient coldness in the way he sinks basketball shots and speaks to himself in mirrors during the voyage whilst the crew sleep. Devilishly, the mission briefing which unfolds at the end of act one does so via a hologram on a basketball court, a locality emblematic of a fast-flowing contest between two sides which, you might say, alludes to later events.
The film contains two sequences I thought a bit beneath Ridley Scott. The first sees two crew members run off at the sight of a 2000 year old carcass, but stop to pet a cobra-like creature which evidently does not want to be touched. The second is the behaviour of certain crew members in a dust storm when an item, which you feel would still be there after the weather, is dropped mere feet from the ship's entrance. The debris of the storm would almost certainly have smashed their helmets as they go out to get it. It is compensated by a later scene in a medical capsule, where a calm robotic voice juxtaposes the sheer panic of the situation and we are made to feel very uneasy.
Otherwise, I would conclude that "Prometheus" delivers. Ultimately, its religious symbolism is subtly woven in, so that blank 'white' spaces behind characters shot at high angles infer nothingness (or newfound atheism) once their crucifixes have been removed from them. These are consequently much more than just fancy-looking camera shots, and convey meaning. This, and more, is reason to see the film.