Review Tuesday: PROMETHEUS

Sir Ridley Scott returns to the sci-fi arena with familiar facets in the film PROMETHEUS.

Set in the future, scientists make a discovery regarding the possible truth that our origins on Earth came from deep space. They follow ancient road maps through space on their spaceship PROMETHEUS to uncover the sinister truth.

The movie clocks in at 124 minutes which goes by very fast. The pace is great. Character development is sufficient. Special effects are brilliant. You bring it all together and it's visually stunning and satisfying.

UNLESS...

You walked in EXPECTING an ALIEN prequel. Get that out of your head! If you are expecting this to lead into the Nostromo finding the derelict spaceship and space jockey, you will be sorely disappointed. However, if you go in with an open mind and NO expectations, you should walk out pretty happy. I felt that the movie took care of all necessary loose ends while leaving the ending open enough that if the demand is there, a sequel could be added.

As a sci-fi fan, I loved this movie. I highly recommend it.

More on IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/

Possible spoilers:

There are certain parts of the movie that i will discuss at THIS point which may or may not spoil a potential viewers' taste for the film. Read on at your own risk.

The planet the team goes to is NOT the planet from the first ALIEN movie. Okay? So that's why there were no face-huggers, and no aliens. In fact, this is about the TEAM, not the aliens, hence the name PROMETHEUS. That's the name of their science vessel provided by the WEYLAND CORPORATION.

Pay close attention to the opening moments of the movie.

The android in this movie, David 8, played by Michael Fassbender is a brilliant character. He shows his dark side here and there, and he lives up to the psychopathic legacy of androids from Scott's other movies.

Why hire Guy Pearce to be Peter Weyland and smother him in make-up and make his role minor?

Charlize Theron makes an unbelievably sexy Meredith Vickers / Weyland decsendant.

I don't feel that the science tean nor the ship's crew acted inappropriately or out of character. They pretty much re-established what we've known about people working for the company - We're here to make money.

Pay close attention to the end of the movie. BTW, there is no extras after the credits.

Definite Spoilers:

Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) gives birth to Cthulhu! That's one of the most surreal scenes in the movie!

Cthulhu grows up fast to become a giant devourer!

We finally get to see what the "derelict ship" looks like in its entirety.

We finally learn what process ended up giving birth to the face-huggers, even though they aren't shown in this movie.

Once again, all Weylands in the movie die by the end.

EDIT 06/13/2012
I didn't catch all the symbolism mentioned in this article:
http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html
But if that's what Ridley was up to, well done! I can't wait to see this again with opened eyes!

Another interesting article:

http://io9.com/5917639/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-design-of-prometheus