It's not often that a film I've anticipated seeing for so long can exceed expectations, but Ridley Scott's PROMETHEUS blew me away. WIth very fond memories of seeing the original Alien in 1979 at the original Cine Capri in Phoenix, I sat in the new Tempe Cine Capri 33 years later VERY excited as the lights went down. From it's opening prologue (fantastic photography and CGI) that heavily echoes 2001 (especially in its opening shot) to nearly its final shot, Prometheus stuns.
This is not a straight up prequel in the way that George Lucas neatly wove the last hour of "Revenge of the Sith" into the beginning of "Star Wars". Prometheus has many, many echoes of Alien but don't go in expecting too many obvious, easy tie-ins to the original. Noomi Rapace (Salander in the original Swedish "Dragon Tattoo" films) and Logan Marshall-Green are scientists that discover similar cave drawings and artifacts on Earth that point to a far away solar system and outsized alien visitors. Scott moves the film along quickly and you are soon along with them on their journey to discover the origin of these visitors. Charlize Theron provides steely support as the ranking official from Weyland Industries and Idris Elba is great as the captain of the ship. Once they land on the planet, fasten your seatbelt. There are at least five action set pieces that will blow you away, my favorite of which deals with a robotic surgery pod and a very brave patient.
Michael Fassbender is terrific as David, the crews's robot with a fascination for Peter O'Toole and "Lawrence of Arabia", its a great performance with a lot of mystery that echoes Ian Holm's 'Nash" in the original Alien. My only complaint was the very last scene, which felt tacked on and out of sync with the majesty of the last 15 minutes, but its a minor quibble compared to the 2 hours plus before that 15 seconds. This is a great film. If you are an action film or casual science fiction fan, its a treat. If you are a big fan of the Alien series and science fiction, you will be rewarded with dozens of echoes of Kubrick's 2001 and the DNA strands of the original Alien. PROMETHEUS is smart, beautiful to watch, thrilling and delivers the goods. An A by any measure. Looking forward to watching the original Alien on tonight...when its dark.......
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