Yet another Alien film

Rating: 5/10 (2 December 2012)

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that the first half of this film really makes you want to like Prometheus overall. Unfortunately, this movie is hold back by a few story clichés and mishaps. The first half introduces the audience to the crew of the space exploration ship Prometheus, and it is immediately evident how well done the set designs are, and the CGI is as convincing as you can expect from a movie this recent.
Then, after the first hour (the movie runs for almost two hours), director Ridley Scott follows familiar territory, by treading on many clichés that any scifi and horror fan can spot from miles away. Part of the disappointment of this, stems from the overall hype surrounding the movie, and from interviews with Ridley Scott in which he claimed that Prometheus would not be yet another Alien movie. Well guess what; its yet another Alien movie.
A pretty well done Alien movie, mind you, but nothing fresh. If you've seen any of the movies in the Alien franchise, you know all the similarities I'm talking about; a couple of people start exploring an alien habitat with no weapons (seriously, what?), they discover why the original crew is largely missing, and poo starts hitting the fan. Most of the characters don't even attempt to avoid any of these cliché's: in one scene, two guys discover these strange alien worm-snakes, and the first thing that he does is try touching it. So all of the great buildup and atmosphere from the first half gets lifted up like a blanket, to reveal the samey scifi horror script that anybody who was born before 1990 can count on his or her fingers by now.
That is not to say that this movie doesn't have its moments, apart from the buildup. There are a couple of gruesome killings that I'm sure gore hounds would appreciate. But the fact remains that Prometheus wasn't supposed to be another gory scifi movie, but something different, and that promise wasn't met here. I'm almost under the impression that the scriptwriters ran out of inspiration after the first half, so they decided to round it up with something familiar.
The actors give an overall good performance. Especially the guy playing David, a humanoid robot (a space crew with a robot, where did I hear that one before?) did a fantastic job. I'd say Prometheus is worth renting just once, since there isn't anything objectively wrong with it production-wise. Don't expect any original story, and you probably won't be that disappointed.