Prometheus

Ridley Scott's latest Sci-fi/Horror/Survival flick, starring Noomi Rapace as scientist Elizabeth Shaw, an...interesting...prequel to the Aliens series.

I am beginning to hatch a theory that the more special effects Ridley Scott - who brought us such titles as Blade Runner (1982), Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and the Alien franchise (1979-present) - has access to, the grosser his films are bound to get. Primarily, I regret to say, Prometheus was gross.

Yes, the effects were praiseworthy. Yes, I enjoyed all of the design. Yes, I appreciated the multiracial cast of characters. Yes, the script had great Alien-esque moments. Yes, the performances of the actors were stunning. However, my first and foremost gut reaction is that this film was disgusting. It was like Scott sat down with the design and animation team and said "I want this to be as gritty, organic, nasty, and invasive as you can possibly make it without our audiences physically barfing, okay?" Because that's about how I would describe the pale, writhing-in-black-goo penile snakey Elder God facesuckers that the film's progenitors of the human race created.

Not to say that it wasn't realistic in the sense that if one was actually on an alien planet going up against bio-engineered creatures of mass destruction, that's probably what it would be like, so props in that direction, but seeing it in movie-theater high-definition, that's something else entirely.

That being said, the stars of the show were Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, and Charlize Theron, for their performances. Fassbender played a spookily accurate android, Theron was appropriately blunt, no-nonsense and corporate, and, most importantly, Rapace more than carried the strong main female role. I don't know if anyone could quite pass Sigourney Weaver's Ripley (flamethrower, anyone?), but Rapace did a heck of a job.

In short? I'd recommend seeing it at least once. It's a good concept and well-executed to boot, but bring your brown paper bags. Cheers.