Well that was unexpected.

What is it about?

Longer spoiler-full version will follow. Two scientists think that recurring images in ancient murals mean that mankind’s “Engineers” are inviting humans to look for them. The images match a star map, and Weyland Corporation funds an exploratory mission to the only life-sustaining planet in the system mapped.

Everyone has their own agenda. The scientists just want to have fun. The robot David wants to surpass his creators. Charlize Theron has daddy issues.

There are aliens, blood and death.

In the end, we find out that (1) there’s probably something wrong with humanity’s design and (2) we should look to both our creator and created.

Here’s the long one.

The year is 2089. Dr. Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Dr. Halloway (some guy) are two scientists who find recurring images in the murals of ancient civilizations in Egypt, Icelandic and so on. Hypothesis: the Engineers (creators of mankind, because how else would civilizations centuries and continents apart know something common unless it was the commonality) left behind an invitation for us humans to come find them. Data in favor of the hypothesis: the image corresponds as a star map to a distant system. There is one moon that can sustain life similar to Earth.

That is the destination of the exploratory vessel Prometheus, funded by Weyland Corporation.

With a crew of seventeen people, Charlize Theron as another female fatale and Michael Fassbender as the endearingly creepy robot David, the scientists venture out into space to find mankind’s creators and figure out all the Whys.

But wait. Something’s wrong.

The explorers find a huge dome structure with a complex of tunnels going through it. In airtight suits they explore the place, and find no one.

A lot of magical (space-age technology, sure) things happen, and the bottomline is that whoever lived on that dome-base was gone. Dead. Missing. There are officially no life forms detected by Dr. Shaw and her cohorts. However, they do find what looks like a tomb with a huge stonework of a humanoid head. There are hundreds of closed vase-like tubes laid on the floor in a pattern.

They take specimens off the remains of a humanoid, fully scientific and observed. David sneaks out a vase, which apparently has organic compounds in it.

Here we go.

(This is the part where I started peeking between my fingers).

Everyone on the crew has a pretty ugly fate. Two pussy scientists (an Engineer and Biologist) leave the main crew because they don’t want to be part of all the freakishness. They wanted to return to the Prometheus. Naturally, they get lost inside the dome. And something happens. Also, because everyone was mean to robot David, telling him he won’t understand because he was just a robot, David wanted to go his own way. He infects Dr. Halloway with the organic substance stolen from the vase, which eventually leads to Dr. Halloway doing somersaults on fire. Since Dr. Halloway (Charlie’s his name) and Dr. Shaw (Elizabeth) had a thing going on, they have sex.

Dr. Elizabeth Shaw is now pregnant with an alien baby.

But wait. Something even more brilliant is coming on.

David (acting under an unknown agenda) discovers and fails to report or communicate that there is one more alien alive. He finds that the alien is under suspension (there’s a technical term for it; I just can’t be bothered) in what seems to be a central controlling room. After a display of beautiful visual effects, it is implied that there are many more worlds engineered by the older race. One of them was Earth, which figures somewhere in the plans of the aliens (right before they mysteriously died).

Back to the ship –Dr. Elizabeth Shaw undergoes a bloody traumatizing abortion of the monster baby (I can seriously feel no compassion whatsoever for it) and discovers a secret (previously foreshadowed): the aging owner of Weyland is alive! Why? It seems like the whole point of the expedition was to ask the older race and the Engineers for a way to stopper death.

David steps in and leads them to where the alien was sleeping. Waking up the alien was apparently a bad idea, and almost everyone dies in the alien’s attempt to fly a space ship (the dome was one big airbase) to Earth.

Dr. Shaw and David’s disembodied head/body survive. Instead of going back to Earth, they do something a little more open-ended.

The fly off, in search of the true creators.

The end.

(Why? There is something fundamentally flawed in the design for humans, which was why the older race, our Engineers, created and stored bioweapons in the dome, located at what could be a military base planet. Unfortunately they couldn’t control the bioweapons (I think), so they died.)

And the alien, which died in an altercation with Dr. Shaw’s grown up monster baby, gives one more surprise.

A mutated alien bursting from its inside.

(Dun-dun-dun)

Who should watch it?

Watch it if:

You like sci-fi horror suspense movies. Otherwise you might keep asking yourself Why? | You like Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Noomi Rapace. | Special/CGI effects are your thing. | You liked the Alien film series.

If you watched the viral videos launched on the internet and became curious (as long as you like surprises).

I warn people who expect a Trekkie or Star Wars experience. No. Just, no.

(Because in Trek there’s always fun and diplomacy and convenient phaser guns lying around. Here, it’s a scientific journey that’s strictly scientific. Possibly unlucky.)

My thoughts

What I like most about this movie is the way it provokes questions (not to the level that I’ll never stop thinking about it, though). I stop and think: What are the ethics of creating artificially intelligent, physio-mentally superior robotic beings? What are the repercussions of explorations that actually reveal the origin of man? Do current searches differ in possibilities to that which happened in Prometheus? Who created the Engineers? Is our intelligent design truly intelligent, or is there something we don’t know? How big is the universe?

Why can’t other people remember who the titan Prometheus was? (He was my favorite in the Greek mythos, equal to Theseus and probably Hector.)

Why should I be 90 years old for this to happen? Can’t Star Trek come in 2020, not SD 2200s?

Also I love Michael Fassbender.

Amazing Spiderman in two weeks!