Visually Stunning

Rating: 7/10 (19 May 2017)

Ridley Scott's return to the Alien franchise was a divisive one. Prometheus is a fascinating and sometimes thrilling addition to the series, albeit with an imperfect way of going about it.
I feel like Scott really wanted to make a science fiction film with exploration at the center of it, and throw in some Alien terror and action to create a blockbuster-y feel. To me, the parts of Prometheus that work the most are when the film is trying to build mythology around the mysterious "Engineers" and their possible relation to the creation of humans and/or Xenomorphs. Of course, the film rarely makes all of the answers to these questions accessible without analysis, but it interests me far more than another film hanging onto the scares of a two-mouthed creature.
The film assembles quite the ensemble, including Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Benedict Wong, and Idris Elba. Every Alien film's strength seems to always lie with its cast, but perhaps this was the best ensemble of any of the films to date. However, besides Rapace and Fassbender, most of the casts' characters aren't fleshed out enough. In other Alien- related films you made not need as much character development because the film isn't built around its cast, but this film feels more character centric and slower paced than others, hence needed some more work.
That's not to say this film doesn't have some great character work. Rapace has a particular scene lying on a medical bed that is some of the best acting this entire series has offered, but I think this film works far better when the vision stays in Ridley Scott's court of directing. His direction and the cinematography is absolutely astounding. This film could easily hold a class as to how to properly shoot cinematography. It's 5 years old and I'm not sure I have seen a science fiction film look more hauntingly real than Prometheus. It's one of those films that you have to admire because of how much work and effort was put into making this Scott's vision from the start.
I think the biggest problem people have with Prometheus (even more so than failing to answer all questions) is that it tries to be too many different types of film at once. I know that all of the Alien films pride themselves on chaos, but at least the narratives never strayed too far away. Prometheus' narrative can be a jumbled mess, especially in the third act, and I think that prevents it from coming close to the early franchise's roots. But there's also a lot to love with a little bit of greatest hits moments from the entire Alien series. Hopefully Scott can really bring everything full circle with Alien: Covenant.
+Design
+Scott's vision
+World building
-Tries to do a lot at once
7.9/10