Prometheus (2012)
★★½ — Prometheus (2012)
Prometheus arrived in 2012 carrying perhaps more expectation than any science fiction film in years. Ridley Scott was returning to the universe he created with Alien (1979), a film that had defined a genre and left an impression on cinema that four sequels and countless imitators had never quite managed to shake. Thirty-three years on, Scott was not making a direct sequel, or even a straightforward prequel, but something positioned as a parallel story, one that asks where humanity came from and whether the answer to that question might be rather unpleasant. The tagline, "the search for our beginning could lead to our end," gives you the flavour of it: grand, portentous, and not shy about its ambitions.
The production brought together Dune Entertainment, Brandywine Productions (the original Alien production company, which gives you a sense of the lineage being invoked) and 20th Century Fox. Scott, whose career in the intervening decades had taken in everything from intimate character work to large-scale historical spectacle, including Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, came to Prometheus as a filmmaker who had lost none of his eye for visual scale. The script was written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, the latter having made his name on the television series Lost, a fact that would prove both a selling point and a source of considerable debate once the film was released. At 124 minutes, it is a deliberate, measured piece of work, one clearly designed to breathe and to ask questions rather than to simply deliver set pieces.
The cast assembled is, on paper, about as strong as you could wish for. Noomi Rapace leads as a scientist whose faith and curiosity pull her toward answers that perhaps should have stayed buried. Michael Fassbender plays David, an android whose motives and interior life are the film's most consistently interesting element, a performance that is controlled and quietly unsettling in roughly equal measure. Charlize Theron brings a polished but unremarkable corporate coldness to her role, while Idris Elba brings warmth and a certain earthy pragmatism as the ship's captain. Guy Pearce appears in a role that attracted some comment at the time, largely because the decision to cast a younger actor in age-altering make-up struck many viewers as an odd choice. Together, they form a crew heading to a distant moon in search of the beings that may have created humanity, and what they find there forms the basis of the film's central conflict. The production is lavish and the world feels genuinely considered, two qualities that make the film's reception all the more instructive. Scott would return to this corner of his universe with Alien: Covenant in 2017, continuing several of the threads left dangling here.
I wanted to love this more than I did. There’s no denying Prometheus is a gorgeous film. Ridley Scott still knows how to direct atmosphere like no one else. The cinematography is stunning, the world-building is vast, and I really appreciated the way it expanded the lore of the universe. The whole “Engineers” concept and the creation myth stuff is genuinely intriguing... but let's be honest: it’s basically an entire spin-off based on a fossil we saw once in Alien. The problem is, while it tries to be profound and philosophical, it never really lands. It asks a lot of big questions but gives frustratingly few answers. The characters make baffling decisions, the script stumbles over its own mystery box setup, and in the end, it just feels like a slightly bloated prequel that forgets to be engaging. Some interesting ideas, but it’s lacking that tightness and dread that made Alien iconic. A beautiful disappointment.
For me, that sums it up about as neatly as it can be summed up. There is real craft on display, and Fassbender in particular is doing something genuinely strange and interesting whenever he is on screen. But a film built around mystery needs to earn its evasions, and Prometheus too often mistakes withholding answers for depth. I walked away admiring the furniture while feeling oddly cold about the house. It is the kind of film I find myself thinking about in spite of my reservations, which is perhaps the most generous thing I can say about it. Beautiful to look at, frustrating to sit with.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2012 | Watched: 2025-04-10
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Prometheus (2012) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Disney Plus · Netflix Standard with Ads
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · YouTube TV · HBO Max
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Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Ridley Scott: Black Hawk Down (2001) · Gladiator (2000) · Alien (1979) · Alien: Covenant (2017)
More from United Kingdom: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) · Blue (1993)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More science fiction: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Fantastic Planet (1973) · Nightmare City (1980) · The Long Walk (2025)
More mystery: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · Carnival of Souls (1962) · One Way or Another (1975)
