Stunning visuals, strong supporting cast offset disappointing screenplay
Despite the advertising choice, one does not need to be familiar with the "Alien" mythology to appreciate what occurs in "Prometheus." As a stand-alone film, "Prometheus" was made for an IMAX screen, boasting pure visual grandeur on par with "Avatar." However, it doesn't exactly live up to its hype due to shallow characterization and anticlimactic payoff.
The film's title, as well as the name of the ship, refers to the Greek titan Prometheus who helped create humans and gave fire to mankind. Through the same mythology, "Prometheus" valiantly asks the big questions like "Where did mankind come from?," only to settle for very banal answers.
"Prometheus" takes us into the future where a team of scientists, led by Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her lover Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), discover a cross-cultural pictogram that leads them to a moon in a distant solar system. Funded by private company Weyland Corp. and led by its ice-queen chief executive Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), an expedition occurs aboard the vessel Prometheus to this moon where Shaw hopes to find evidence of the "Engineers," an alien race she believes created mankind.
Also aboard Prometheus is the film's most interesting character (and he is not even human), an emotionless android named David, played brilliantly by Michael Fassbender. Fassbender gives the movie's grandest performance as an android that models himself after Peter O'Toole in "Lawrence of Arabia" and lives on a mixture of curiosity, detachment and arrogance. His own motives for this expedition are inscrutable as he, along with Vickers, has his own agenda.
As for the human characters, they remain too simplistic and underwritten, though Rapace's character is a possible exception. Shaw is definitely the most rounded, as we see glimpses of her childhood that help us understand what motivates her through this expedition and we become compelled enough to feel for her when her faith is tested.
The screenplay fills up the narrative with plenty of quotable lines and the traditional "Alien" gore, but focuses more on the mystery than it does on the protagonists. "Prometheus" is more about solving the mystery of humanity's creation, answering questions about the Engineers' motivations and introducing the series of events that lead to the birth of the signature alien species.
With the high-minded subject matter comes frustration, as "Prometheus" is more interested in piling on the questions than it is answering them, leaving "Alien" fans and newcomers alike wanting more.
"Prometheus" is worth watching for one reason: the magnificently realized visual scope that original "Alien" couldn't technically accomplish. The film opens with a short tour of its gorgeous landscape created through sheer visual spectacle. Whether or not to see the film in 3D would be up to viewers since the 3D neither enhances nor degrade the visuals, but it does help the viewer get lost in this dreamlike world.
"Prometheus" would be nearly perfect if the conclusion weren't so disappointing and the movie had focused more on characterization. Still, the movie deserves points for its gorgeous visual landscapes, the performances of the Fassbender and Rapace and its suspenseful and thought-provoking material.