I'm impressed

Rating: 10/10 (14 May 2015)

This is such a great film. The only one that I have seen over and over again and yet it keeps on surprising me and above all making me think. There is clunkiness and it does try to do too much. It is too dense, I admit. But it is still a great film, full of obvious horrors, well documented and very clear but along with them much more subtle ones. The subtle ones include: Robots who can read your dreams and then use the knowledge against you; mans desire for immortality – at any expense, including his daughter's life; A robot made by men, which has utter contempt for men at the same time; A realisation that we are the SAME as the Engineers, with matching DNA, and the Engineers are ruthless creators and destroyers of life. Continual references to biological weapons – both man made (Ebola?) and Engineer made, and references to the Holocaust (both man made and by the Engineers). David is the key, he is a horrifying creation, ruthless, judgmental, deceitful, manipulative, lying, cruel. Yet created by man. This makes the film very complex and interesting. If we created David and he is such a terrible creation, then who created us and why and are we equally terrible? Maybe. So is the act of creation a foolish act, which leads to disaster for the creator. We never find out what David says to the Engineer, why not? No translation is provided, and again to me this is a clue as the what is going on, the thing that is created, whether it is us or David, becomes uncontrollable and dangerous.