Sigh

Rating: 5/10 (1 June 2012)

Oh the hype. I cannot recall anticipating a movie so much. Matrix Reloaded may have come close, and the feeling of disappointment is all too familiar.
This is the first time I have been compelled to write a review on this site, mainly because most of my friends haven't seen it yet and I just have to vent my feelings somewhere. But before I begin that cathartic release let me say that this is no way a bad movie. I never once had the urge to walk out and I expect I will watch it again some months down the line. I don't feel the anger I experienced after Matrix 2 or Indy 4 but I certainly don't have the buzz of having just watched a truly great movie.
Lets start with the storyline. I think anyone going to watch this is fully aware by now that this is q prequel to Alien, and trust me, you'll have been slapped so hard in the face with this fact by the end of the film that your cheeks will be stinging. Time spent on plot background is over in a matter of seconds. If you've seen the trailers then you've pretty much seen the reason they're off to another planet. From there the storyline follows the usual tried and tested Alien(s) method, i.e. They find stuff, it ain't good and people start dying. What's wrong with that? You cry. Nothing is wrong with that but from then on in in you can't help yourself comparing it to the other two films. And that's where the wheels start falling off.
The first two Alien movies were filled with strong characters who acted and behaved as you felt they should when their friends and colleagues start dying around them. In Prometheus however they may well have all been androids as Rapace apart, they were all taking death and destruction remarkably in their stride. Even one of the best scenes in the whole movie (Rapace's DIY Cesarean) is just glossed over like it didn't happen when . She escapes quarantine, removes a baby squid from her stomach and then runs into the others covered in blood only to be mocked for lacking scientific fibre. Theron may just have well not been there for all she adds and will someone please tell me why they felt it necessary to employ Guy Pearce to play an old man? Here's an idea, just hire an old man to do it instead!
Even the characters taken as a whole are a rather strange bunch. In Alien they were a mining vessel (believable). In Aliens they took some hard asses because they were expecting trouble (believable). However on this occasion a billionaire thinks he'll take himself half way across the universe fully expecting to meet another civilisation who may or may not be hostile and who does he take with him? A couple of scientists, his daughter and a bunch of misfits. Oh but its OK, they have flamethrowers and a few pistols.
Moving on to the bad guys and here we have something which I thought was rather good, as an idea. The concept of humans having evolved from an alien race is a good one, and one of the more believable parts of the film. It was a good idea tackled well. Now if we'd just stayed with that idea and made a film about it I may have been a much happier man. However Scott had decided from the outset that this would be an alien prequel and we were subjected to this absurd notion that they were sinply created by a squid impregnating a super human. Bingo! Quite why this hadn't already happened on the planet before is a mystery, as is why the Alien's don't come out looking more human every time one pops out of our stomachs. And so to the final scene which I suspect Scott saw in a ream one night and built an entire film around it. I can only compare it to Darth Vader's unavailing in Star Wars 3. Laughable.
As a rule I don't like prequels and sequels. They all too often lead to feelings of anger and dismay. But I thought if anyone is going to do it right it would be Ridley Scott. Alien was his baby and there's no way he'd make a mess of it. Well now I feel its time for a public appeal. Will somebody please make a decent ORIGINAL sci-fi movie. PLEASE!