I was impatient to see this film. I am a great admirer of Ridley Scott and his latest film has been getting good reviews in the British press, so tonight we went and watched Prometheus. First, one piece of excellent news for The Wire fans; Stringer Bell (I mean Idris Elba) lives on, Elba playing the (space) ship’s captain. Second, the film is great entertainment, with sophisticated special effects, a jinking plot and lots of thrills and spills. Third, although Noomi Rapace, playing the heroine Elizabeth Shaw, keeps up Alien‘s ‘innovation’ of a strong female lead, she does not reach Sigourney Weaver levels (we always knew that was impossible). Fourth, this ‘tight’ plot has some loose ends, it’s difficult to see how the film could serve directly as a ‘prequel’ and at the end the plot too neatly leaves an opening for ‘sequels’ other than the Alien franchise. Job sort of done, then? Yes, and I enjoyed myself, but I was a little disappointed. In the first, great Alien film, less is definitely more. Here, more is definitely less. But if Scott stumbles it is at a high altitude and I couldn’t help thinking that the film was deliberately referential and at times almost tongue-in-cheek. I have scoured the reviews and apparently nobody else feels that way. But when a severed head wise-cracked as it was stuffed in a handbag I couldn’t help think that I’d seen that scene somewhere else before.  So: go, enjoy, but keep your expectations reasonably low.