The Alien marketing hook without the pay-off

Rating: 7/10 (1 June 2012)

2093AD, following the discovery of alien star maps on Earth, a scientific space expedition to seek out the origins of man, ala Chariot of the Gods, arrives at LV223 (NOT LV426!). But is everything as it seems..... Ridley Scott has wisely lambasted the idea of a straight sequel/prequel to Alien/Aliens, as they had been done to death. However, he felt he could re-visit some of its most stunning-but previously unexplained images-a derelict spacecraft,cargo and "space jockeys". The issue I had was that by delving into the same territory and using parts of Alien as a hook to draw interest-there was some expectation of xenomorph action. Alas not. The first act is slow and lacks the tense atmosphere that Alien/Aliens had from the start. However, it is beautiful to look at and the concept of finding the origins of man is nicely laid out. This is it's own beast, so why follow the old traits of success. When the landing party start to investigate a strange mound structure and its interior-things start to get more interesting. However, the pacing and tension are no way near as well balanced and sustained as Alien/s. The comparisons are unavoidable-the makers are using the Alien canon to tell the tale but fall short of their aspirations. Now, there are some very good things here.I Fassbenders android, is superb. Is he seemingly as ruthless as Ash from Alien, or the hidden good guy of Aliens? Or just morally ambiguous? Rapace, Theron and Elba are also of a decent standard. However, the Prometheus's crew are fairly one dimensional cut outs overall, partly due to the extra baggage of the origins idea and because there are 17 crew members. Also the script and characterisations are in no way as naturalistic as the Nostromo ensemble had in Alien. Individually, even the main cast members lack character arcs-aside from Fassbender.
On the bright side, there are two very near classic gruesome scenes which tap into the Alien ideology. Its just a shame that Ridley Scott didn't hire another script writer to come in to hone and polish the third act. It becomes muddled, characters seem to be expelling exposition in a matter of a fact way to make up for the lack of explanation elsewhere. I still enjoyed the film overall, but the individual moments of brilliance do not make a classic, consistent piece. The 3D is very good,as it was filmed with this in mind. Whatever Ridley Scott was intending to create is given a nasty dose of the comical with Guy Pearce's old man prosthetics and undermines the realism and attention to detail gone before it. The last act has its moments but leaves behind a muddled batch of half baked ideas which the two script writers seem to want to just offload. I saw the origins and motives of the Space Jockey engineers long before the writers drop them haphazardly into the film. The few new ideas introduced-aside from a broader explanation of the space jockeys-are left unanswered.
am being very critical but as you can see my mark is not too harse. Visually it is stunning to look at- Its more a case of I had to hold this up for comparison with the first two classic movies- which it owes its origins too.