Prometheus (2012)

 Any movie lover knows that one of the most iconic scenes of cinematic history involves an alien bursting through John Hurt's stomach in Ridley Scott's classic film 'Alien'. Many sequels were to follow as well as even more crossover films with the Predator story. Some were brilliant, some were not. I saw the first of this franchise when I was about 12 and I have to say it absolutely terrified me so, obviously, it became one of my favourites and I have seen every other movie in the series (Aliens is my favourite, just in case you wanted to know). When I heard that they were going to make what is essentially a prequel, I was dubious. Why would you want to mess with something as good as 'Alien'? It seemed like a pretty big risk to take, especially for a franchise that has not been too successful in recent years (Alien vs Predator: Requiem received a score of 12% on Rotten Tomatoes, and was nominated for two Razzies including worst sequel). It all just seemed a bit pointless to me.

 The movie takes place in the near(ish) future when two archaeologists find evidence of alien life on Earth. Star maps are located in art throughout history and have been linked to a galaxy far far away (sorry, I know that's the wrong franchise, but it worked). Several years later, a scientific mission has been funded with the aim of visiting the alien's home planet and attempting to discover why they came to Earth all those years ago. However, this is a movie in the 'Alien' series so of course everything doesn't go to plan. The people on-board the ship are not who they seem, the aliens aren't who they seem, even the planet they are visiting isn't what it appears to be. After all, this movie does have to set up the plot for the rest of the series and they are not exactly happy tales of 'E.T.' like friendship.

 To move on to the opinion part of this review, this film is kind of what I was expecting it to be. It was never going to be a bad film as far as I was concerned. Ridley Scott was back at the helm and with a cast containing actors such as Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender and Guy Pearce it would be pretty difficult to majorly screw this one up in terms of acting and directing. The main potential stumbling block for this film would be in the shape of the storyline. Finding a prequel that would've kept fans of the originals happy but also allowed for movie goers who had no previous exposure to 'Alien' to enjoy the film must've been a difficult challenge. In my opinion, I think they did pretty well. This film has a lot of nods to the original movie, whilst still making it easy to watch for those who have never heard of Ripley or Nostromo, making for a pretty good story overall. I had read some reviews that suggested that this film is difficult to follow and several implied that there was no apparent thread to the story whatsoever.I would disagree with this. Whilst some parts of the movie don't make a huge amount if sense (like the opening scene or the fact that one of the crew members is able to run around and escape after undergoing a major operation), the majority follows a very clear storyline, and shouldn't be too hard to follow for anyone who is able to focus on something for more than 10 minutes at a time.

 The special effects are (of course) incredible, in particular *SPOILER* the scenes where Michael Fassbender's head is fully functional but detached from his body (at this point I should probably explain that Fassbender plays a cyborg and the movie doesn't actually involve some sort of gruesome decapitation where the head continues to twitch afterwards).

 However, having said all that, there is something about this film, that I can't quite put my finger on, that makes it not quite as good as I would've hoped. Whilst the story is good, it's not quite good enough. Whilst the acting is good, there's just something missing. Admittedly it was never going to be as good as the original or some of the later films in the series, but I feel this could've been better than the finished product. It is just missing that something special that would've secured it's place (like the others) as a great movie in it's own right rather than just a good prequel.