Ignore the haters! New age in sci-fi horror, same old atmospheric terror!

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2013)

First and foremost, when you intend to see Prometheus, what do you expect? This is a prequel to the greatest science fiction horror franchise of all time; picked up by its original writers, producers and director and given a new spin to include the new generations. And if something is going to be continued/rebooted then why not at the hands of the people that gave it you to begin with? Prometheus is an origin tale that deals with the discovery of the alien Engineers that created the Xenomorph (the creatures of the Aliens movies) and the horror that naturally ensues. Simple? No, it is much more than that. In true Ridley Scott fashion, everything is richly multi-layered, the film has an intelligent culture all of its own, it has a broad multi-narrative provided by a vast array of characters and despite the fact that the prequel is now way more advanced than the sequel in terms of technology inside and outside of this fictional universe, it has the exact same atmosphere I remember feeling while watching Alien as a kid.
Prometheus cleverly puts the more famous character actors in the background and gives prime time to the lesser familiar faces (Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green) in order to establish the story and then the brutal and sometimes gutwrenching horror.
But what it also does most cleverly is take its sweet ol' time getting to the meat beneath the surface. The story telling is fantastic, the setting is dark and heavy despite there being a lot of daylight and the horror delivers a whole lot more than I expected. But you need to know that, as Ridley Scott is a master of suspense, this means that the stuff you want to see this film for does not come full on, yet escalates just slowly enough at times to make your skin crawl.
By the end of Prometheus, if you are not satisfied that you have just seen a true first class sci-fi horror worthy of the original, you've just joined the growing legions of the 'nothing-is-ever-good-enough-for-me' undead! Sci-fi, horror, huge story, subtexts, sub-plots and huge lashings of originality; what's not to like?