Ridley Scott brings us back to his epic vision of our future and while spectacular, its sadly disappointing. Setting the many high points aside, Prometheus suffers from a plot that doesn’t know what it wants to say and contains a large amount of disposable divergences that just weaken the experience.

Scientists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway (played by Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green) discover a breadcrumb trail left by ancient aliens they call “Engineers”, whom they theorize had a hand in humanity’s beginning. This discovery could hold the secrets to life as we know it. Where do we come from, who created us and perhaps most important, why? Eager to find answers, they seek funding for an expedition to the planet they believe is the engineer’s home. Peter Weyland, owner of the Weyland Corporation (played by Guy Pearce) agrees to fund their trip. Thus the ship Prometheus begins its voyage to destinations unknown, looking for answers to mankind’s most burning questions.

Once Prometheus reaches it’s destination the crew finds remains of massive structures and cave-like tunnels. Exploration leads to the discovery of several giant aliens bodies and a strange chamber full of curious containers. Crushed by the loss of potential contact with living alien beings they stubbornly continue to investigate, returning to Prometheus with part of an engineer corpse to study. But secretly David, the ships android (played by Michael Fassbender) brings back his own item to study… you can see where this is going right?

While cast well, Prometheus never to give the actors a chance to shine save Fassbender. They often hint that there’s more to David than meets the eye, but that plot point falls flat on its face. I’m torn whether or not to rant about my biggest problem with this movie, because it could easily be considered a spoiler, even though its ultimately not important and super lame… Lets just say that Mr. Weyland totally ruins this movie… Old men should stay home.

On the bright side, Prometheus enjoys incredible eye-popping visuals and excellent art direction thanks in large to H. R. Giger (Skilled artist and all time crazy-eyes winner).

Seriously look at this dude!

In the end Prometheus is decently entertaining but just doesn’t go anywhere interesting. The “Mr. Weyland problem” totally undermines the significance of Shaw and Holloway’s mission, which until the final act felt very important. I’m not going to say I didn’t enjoy it, because I did. I was just expecting more from Ridley.

Prometheus receives a rating of MATINEE. Its a beautifully-crafted mess. If your a die-hard sci-fi fan you owe it to yourself to go see it on the big screen (cause its pretty). Just don’t pay full price (or go to a midnight show like I did…).

Fun Factor: 60%