Prometheus was one of the movies that I was most looking forward to this year. It had so much hype following it everywhere. Tons of rumors, trailers, clips, interviews, and advertisements were coming out. I stayed away from everything because I would have hated for my curiosity to ruin things for me. In the end, I saw one of the trailers before seeing it. My expectations were very high, and my big worry was that this would just be Alien with upgraded special effects. I’ve seen it twice now, and can say it’s a very good movie. However, this is the type of movie that has many small problems. If you look, you can’t find anything major that’s wrong with this. There’s just a good amount of nitpicking I couldn’t help doing. This isn’t a masterpiece, and misses out (not by much) on the greatness that Alien did. Even with that said, Prometheus is still one of the best Sci-Fi movies I’ve seen in a good while.

Two scientist (Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green) discover a pattern in a cave drawing that matches it to similar ones around the world. After pinpointing the patterns-deep space source, a discovery mission is schedule for the year 2093 to find it; backed by a company with serious money. There are seven-teen crew members aboard for this expedition. The scientists hope to meet their “maker” – but everything might not be as they thought it would.

Ridley Scott is an excellent and director. He has made many outstanding movies and some of my all-time favorites. Gladiator, Blade Runner and Alien are my favorites of his. It has been quite a long time since he had made a Sci-Fi movie; his return to this genre had me excited. Scott can do great things with it. Overall, he does a very good job. The only small problem I have is that at times throughout I couldn’t help but see scenes and compare them to Alien. It never follows it; more like hits some of the same beets as Alien did. That small issue aside, Scott does so many interesting things with the story and no one can deny he knows how to direct Sci-Fi marvelously.

The screenplay was interesting to say the least. Ideas have been jumbling around this script for a long time and many different people were attached and then dropped off. Plus, it wasn’t clear what they wanted the story to actually be. This sort of translated into the the movie. You an tell that this was an ambitious movie – there are many ideas and story elements. Stories like this are at risk of having plot holes. Here it maintained a tightened enough story to where it never took me out of everything. Parts made me question a little; thankfully, that didn’t ever last long.

There are seven-teen crew members. Of course with that many characters in this kind of plot, you know some are going to be there purely to die. When you get down to it, there are seven characters that were developed well enough for me to connect with or understand them. By far, the best and most intriguing character is David. They used him to great effect. His view on humanity, interactions and his personality are so engaging. The dialog written for him combined with the performance made David something else. Making an audience care most for the robot is always a big accomplishment.

The acting is solid from everyone. Noomi Rapace is great. I was unaware of this until recently, but she played Lisbeth Salander in the original Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Her performance is well done, and she makes you want her character to make it out of this huge mess alive. Charlize Theron has been playing the villain or the mean strict character this year. She has been in this and Snow White & the Huntsman. She does play the role very well. Her character is a familiar and a slightly cliched one. However in the end, her acting holds up and makes you forget about that. The stand-out performance for me though was from Michael Fassbender. He plays David, the android of the crew. Whenever someone plays that kind of role, it can come off as robotic, too bland, or in the end become uninteresting. Here he sells everything about David. You are interested in him and he was the character I cared for the most. Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green and the rest of the cast do a good job as well.

Visually, Prometheus is flawless. So much attention to detail was given; I loved the design for everything. The ship, planet, costumes and the aliens all look amazing. This visual aspect of the movie helped it immensely. When I would come across things, I didn’t like, for example, there was still always something to look at. I don’t like when special effects are used to cover up a story. Fortunately, this is one of the cases where the special effects are used to enhance it.

Among other things, Prometheus is a throwback to classic science fiction. Of course, it had to be Ridley Scott to do this. I can’t elaborate on any of my nitpicks because they would all enter spoiler territory. Plenty of science fiction movies have come out year after year. Some are good, but for the most part, they are forgettable. I haven’t seen all the science fiction movies that have come out, but the only one I loved and can remember of the top of my head is District 9. I now have another one to recall. There is a lot going on here; this is definitely a movie that you have to see twice to understand it completely. Sometimes endings can hit you over the head with the fact that there’s going to be a sequel. Here though I can say I’m anxious for the next installment. My problems bothered me to a point, but there is plenty to love here.