Prometheus [Blu-ray] [2012] [4K UHD]

A stand-alone masterpiece among the Ridley Scott "Alien" universe. I thoroughly respect the intelligence of the screenwriters who put this script together, and the editors that made this work. This film is not for the slow crowd. It's definitely mindful, with a lot of subtext and nuance. It will leave you thinking, perhaps even debating its meaning with others. I'm a senior, and a videophile, and I rank this film in my top 50 of all time. See it! You won't be disappointed.

It's an easy movie to criticize, but it doesn't deserve it. I'm not giving the fifth star because it's absolutely perfect. But, given the way it fits with the Alien films, but goes in new directions, this really is one of the great recent science fiction films.A lot of people have criticized a number of the "campy"/bonehead plot devices the film contains. I think the funniest is the one about the worst direction to run if a giant rolling, round spaceship is about to crush you (hilarious).But it's easy to criticize some of the shallower holes or weak links in the plot and not acknowledge the healthy condition of the broad bones of the plot structure. What made Alien (and the Alien series) great was plot structure and concept (and Ridley Scott's skillful execution of it). The thrills and chills were there because of the combination of realism and symbolism in the plot--because it was good science fiction. Science fiction has always been a lot more symbolic than scientific, and it was the ability of the creature to hold so much symbolic weight that made it so frightening, not just the art and special effects.Prometheus builds on this symbolic complexity by looking out into space (the divine unknown) not for the supreme anti-human force this time (Alien's alien), but for the "divine" origins of human beings. It's interesting. Scott makes the puzzle about these divine-human creatures (the engineers in Prometheus) as compelling as the creature in Alien. A little more intellectual and less visceral--but pretty similar.It is structured as a brainy science fiction film. Science fiction has always been about heavy symbolism in a high-energy, pulpy package. So I'm fine with unexplained spider zombie characters, and blatant, thin, pulpy, gore-y plot devices (in fact I enjoy them, think they're essential for the genre and overall effect, and would miss them if they were gone), as long as the backbone of the film is solid. And it is. Naomi Rapace's character is solid, and Michael Fassbender's. And guess who's left at the end of the film? Only the characters that mattered.Plus it's visually beautiful. And the way Scott weaved in so many Alien concepts into an original story in a way that built the whole thing up into a broader and still consistent world-- instead of dragging it down --is also extremely impressive.This movie will be appreciated a lot more a few years down the road. And even more so if a good sequel follows.

I'll get the visceral reaction out of the way quickly. I was disappointed with the movie the first time I watched it, from a director who gave us the original "Alien" and "Blade Runner" plus gripping non-sci fi films such as "Black Rain" and "Gladiator". The best thing I can say for Director Scott is that I believe the primary problem is not with the premise, which had enormous potential, but in the plot and the line by line writing. But, I watched it a second time the next night, and some of the kinks were ironed out by noticing some lines. Also, the relevance of the Prometheus myth became far clearer, and through it, I realized an important back story explanation which was obscured by the characters' ignorance. Read the Prometheus story before watching the movie and pay very close attention to the opening (and think 2001 opening.)One indicator of how incomplete things seem is that the very old billionaire, Peter Weyland, is played by a fine middle aged actor, Guy Pearce, but we never see him younger in flashbacks, which were probably cut from the final editing. Without giving too much away, the Peter Weyland character adds very little to the story aside from being the person who funds the mission.I sensed something was seriously out of joint when the "away team" enters the cavernous artifact. After encountering something just a bit squeamish, the geologist Fifield (Sean Harris) and biologist Milburn (Rafe Spall) decide to return to the Prometheus (the name of the humans' interstellar space ship.) The remaining team does a fair amount of exploring. Among other things, they see a hologram of the intelligent giants, drawings of whom they found on Earth. they are seeking running from some unseen danger. I saw no clue to what triggered the hologram. Following the hologram, they find the decapitated head of one of the giants (as opposed to the 'aliens' we encountered in earlier films).The captain of the Prometheus sends them a message that a serious storm is approaching. The team, with the usual annoyingly distracting side efforts which slow them down, reach the entrance and begin driving their vehicles back to the ship. But, and here the train falls off the track, never to return, we find Fifield and Milburn still in the artifact, when they said they were returning to the ship. They found some kind of life which intrigued the biologist. But why didn't the team returning to the ship notice that none of their vehicles were gone. Why did they leave the other two behind? Somehow, the two truants don't get the warning about the storm, or ignore it, so they become stuck in the artifact.There are loose ends aplenty with the alien fauna on this desolate world. My expectation coming in was that the film would explore the origins of two creatures, the "Alien" and the race of the giant pilot discovered by the crew of the mining ship Nostromo in "Alien". We meet the giants soon enough, but we also encounter at least three other life forms which have a passing resemblance to THE Alien, but their connection to the life cycle of the Alien is never explained.I'm entering dangerous "spoiler" territory now, so I will not discuss any more of the plot except to say that there are a number of unexplained events. Mysteries are great in the middle of the film, but one expects most of these to be wrapped up and revealed at the end of the picture. Many are not, leaving a huge jumping off point for a sequel to "Prometheus".Part of the special attraction of this story is that the audience knows full well what will eventually happen, so there is a lot of mental "don't go there" and "don't do that" moments, because we already know what things that look like that can do. The problem with that is that there is too much "quoting" from "Alien" for my tastes. Most of it is done relatively well, but it becomes more and more obvious as time goes on, and increasingly annoying. There is also ample quoting from other major Sci Fi movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (both in situations and in dialogue). There are also some subtle cinematic (visual) quotes from "Avatar" and "Jurassic Park".One of the bright spots, aside from the imaginative, well done CGI and cinematography, is the acting, which I always thought was a weak spot in "Alien". The crewmen, such as Captain Idris Elba, are spot on (unlike Yahpet Kotto in "Alien"). Instead of the strong Ellen Ripley character, we have the physically smaller and less imposing archaeologist, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) who sports a convincing English accent as the lead character. Charlize Theron's character is restrained and unlikable. Like both Scott and Cameron's "Alien" and "Aliens", this movie has an android (artificial person) as a principal character, in a role much fuller than in the earlier movies. The only thing which distinguishes 'David', Michael Fassbender's android from Scott's earlier android Ash (Ian Holm, Alien) and Cameron's Bishop (Lance Hendrickson, Aliens)is that David is ever so slightly stilted, somewhat like Data from "Startrek, The Next Generation."I will give this the benefit of the doubt for now, but I found a strong disjoint in the rationale between two early scenes and the climax. I sense Scott wanted to leave plenty of meat on the bone to support a sequel. (In contrast, Avatar is almost totally devoid of preparation for a sequel I suspect I will need to revisit this review after seeing the film again. If my suspicion about gaps and disconnects is born out, I may have to lower my rating to 3 stars.