Movie review: Prometheus (+trailer)

Ridley Scott's latest alien epic is pretty good. But it should have been better.

Set about 80 years in the future, the film is centred around a team of scientists seeking to uncover the origin of mankind on a faraway planet.

They travel aboard Prometheus, a high-tech spaceship, to the planet several lights years away, and there they embark on a search for alien life forms they believe may hold the key to life on Earth.

The scientists, led by Dr Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Dr Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), awake from their engineered sleep just in time to land on the mysterious alien planet.

As they explore the landscape of the desert planet, it becomes apparent other life exists - and they may not come in peace.

The action, anticipation and horror moments of this science-fiction epic live up to the expectations of a Ridley Scott production, undoubtedly following in the footsteps of the Alien series he created (and, indeed, quite possibly preceding them in storyline).

But it's the more subtle moments where the film falls flat.

Characters make plot connections beyond the scope of their understanding.

And the drama inherent in developed character relationships is missing - essentially, there's no real connections between the characters, which means the would-be emotional scenes carry no real weight.

The moments of fright and terror do, though, go some way toward making up for the script's other shortcomings.

An enjoyable two hours and 20 minutes of movie, but the hurried leaps in plot and the poorly played dramatic scenes do let it down.

Prometheus

3D (R16), 140 minutes

Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars