Ridley Scott’s prequel flick to his notorious ALIEN film finally is here – PROMETHEUS.  Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron are the headline names but the film’s star is undoubtedly Noomi Rapace, known for her feature role in the Swedish versions of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,  as the explorer Elizabeth Shaw.  Along with her team co-led by Logan Marshall-Green’s Charlie Holloway, Shaw discovers a pattern of illustrations connecting many of mankind’s first civilizations with the hope of identifying mankind’s creators. Ok, so no more plot.

Ever want to see how traveling to another planet should look like?  From ship pods to changing atmospheric conditions, PROMETHEUS offers one quite interesting and real-feeling interpretation.  It is a beautifully crafted science-fiction film, capturing space and inter-planetary travel in ways unparalleled.  There is no denying the way the film aesthetically delivers. In fact it’s so good that there might be some incongruities with the original Alien, a film that is supposed to take place in a time much after this film.  Technology is much better and capabilities more advanced on board Prometheus, the ship for which the film is named after, all the while taking place before its famous predecessor. Let’s just chalk that up to improvements in film making and let it be.

What is so intriguing about this film? Well, we know the film tries to answer some of the most mystifying questions our species has yet to discover with certainty. It’s really the uncertainty though the really drives the film.  Shaw’s team hopes to find answers but the prerogatives of her fellow passengers shift the balance of power.  The events the occur lead to revelations within the crew itself and bring about more questions left unanswered by the film.  Don’t go if you have want certainty in a plot line for you will be surely left unsatisfied.

Scott’s magnificent world very much overshadows it’s cast. Theron’s Meredith Vickers is a ruthless babe that wears little if any makeup, a character that Tilda Swinton would have also nailed.  Fassbender’s David kind of urk’d me though. I get his role, and you will to once you find out more about him, but his dialogue and actions were often inconsistent.  Some of his behavior came out of left field and his sarcasm was more questionable than funny.   A.O Scott of the New York Post says it well that “the sentient, sensitive, possibly treacherous [David] is hardly a novelty in this kind of movie, and David is partly a collage of cinematic allusions.”

As per the aforementioned Rapace, her character in Elizabeth Shaw is a very likable heroine with amazing survival instincts.  Though dwarfed in physique compared to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, the heroine in the original Alien films, Shaw most definitely holds her own.

Much like the trailers, I am trying to keep things mysterious. The film is a hit because it captures your imagination.  Moments of raw shock are complemented with curiosity on the questions left answered, making this one authentic trip to the cinema.  Sequel anyone?

SEE IT