Prometheus

IMDB Ratings: 7.3/10 from 191,086 users

Prometheus is a 2012 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof. The film stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron. The story is set in the late 21st century and centers on the crew of the spaceship Prometheus as they follow a star map discovered among the remnants of several ancient Earth cultures. The crew, seeking the origins of humanity, arrive on a distant world and discover an advanced civilization and a threat that could cause the extinction of the human race.

Plot

As a hovering spacecraft departs an Earth-like world, a humanoid alien drinks a dark bubbling liquid, then starts to disintegrate. The alien's remains cascade into a waterfall. His DNA triggers a biogenetic reaction.

In 2089, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway discover a star map in Scotland that matches others from several unconnected ancient cultures. They interpret this as an invitation from humanity's forerunners, the "Engineers". Peter Weyland, the elderly CEO of Weyland Corporation, funds the creation of the scientific vessel Prometheus to follow the map to the distant moon LV-223. The ship's crew travels in stasis while the android David monitors their voyage. Arriving in 2093, they are informed of their mission to find the Engineers. Mission director Meredith Vickers orders the crew to avoid making contact without her permission.

The Prometheus lands near a large artificial structure, which a team explores. Inside they find numerous stone cylinders, a monolithic statue of a humanoid head, and the decapitated corpse of a large alien, thought to be an Engineer. They find other bodies and presume the species is extinct. The team takes the Engineer's head back for analysis. David secretly takes a cylinder, while the remaining ones begin leaking a dark liquid. A rapidly approaching storm forces the crew to return to Prometheus, leaving members Millburn and Fifield stranded in the structure. In the ship's lab, the Engineer's DNA is found to match that of humans. David investigates the cylinder and the dark liquid inside. He then intentionally taints a drink with the substance and gives it to an unaware Holloway. Shortly after, Shaw and Holloway have sex.

Inside the structure, a snake-like creature kills Millburn, and sprays a corrosive fluid that melts Fifield's helmet. Fifield falls face-first into a puddle of dark liquid. The crew later returns to the structure and finds Millburn's corpse. David separately discovers a control room containing a surviving Engineer in stasis, and a star map highlighting Earth. Holloway's ingestion of the dark liquid leads to an infection that rapidly ravages his body. He is rushed back to Prometheus, but Vickers refuses to let him aboard, and at his urging, burns him to death with a flamethrower. Later, a medical scan reveals that Shaw, despite being sterile, is pregnant with an alien offspring. Fearing the worst, she uses an automated surgery table to extract and subdue the squid-like fetus. Weyland is revealed to have been in stasis aboard Prometheus, and explains to Shaw he wants to ask the Engineers to prevent his death from old age. As Weyland prepares to leave for the structure, Vickers addresses him as "Father".

Fifield, who has been mutated by the dark liquid, attacks the Prometheus's hangar bay and kills several crew members before he is killed. The Prometheus's captain, Janek, speculates that the structure was an Engineer military installation that lost control of a virulent biological weapon, the dark liquid. He also determines a part of the structure is a spacecraft. Weyland and a team return to the structure. David awakens and speaks to the Engineer, who responds by decapitating him and killing Weyland and his team. Shaw escapes the spacecraft as the Engineer activates it. Shaw warns Janek that the Engineer is planning to release the liquid on Earth and convinces Janek to stop the spacecraft. Janek ejects the lifeboat and rams the Prometheus into the alien craft while Vickers escapes in an escape pod. The Engineer's disabled spacecraft crashes onto the ground; its wreckage crushes Vickers. Shaw goes to the lifeboat and finds that her alien offspring is still alive, and has grown to gigantic size. David's still-active head warns Shaw over the intercom that the Engineer has survived the crash. The Engineer forces open the lifeboat's airlock and attacks Shaw, who releases her alien offspring onto the Engineer; it thrusts a tentacle down the Engineer's throat, subduing him. Shaw recovers David's remains, and with his help, launches another Engineer spacecraft. She intends to reach the Engineers' homeworld in an attempt to understand why they wanted to destroy humanity.

In the lifeboat, an alien creature bursts out of the Engineer's chest.