By Dave Montalbano

AdventuresOfCinemaDave.com

For most of his life, director/ writer Guillermo Del Toro dreamed of adapting H.P. Lovecraft’s novella “At the Mountains of Madness” into a film. He came close a few years ago, but funding fell apart. After a screening of Prometheus a few weeks ago and its similarities to the story, Del Toro no longer feels he needs to produce it.

Prometheus became the first motion picture to open at the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Discovery with an “R” rating. While lacking gratuitous violence and sex, it features intense scenes that are personal, painful and gory. This film also features good old-fashioned Sci-Fi fun with interesting theories about origins, science and theology.

While spelunking in the caves of Scotland, archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) connects pictograph dots that are similar to those seen in pictographs of Egyptian, Mayan, Aztec and Sumerian Cultures. Using the technology of the late 21st Century, Professor Shaw interprets these pictographs as road maps to the future.

She finds a sponsor in Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), assembles a crew and blasts off on the spaceship “Prometheus.” Four years later, the Prometheus crew lands on an uncharted planet with an alien fortress.

Revealing more about the plot would be a disservice to the big screen experience. Suffice it to say that reviewing the previous four Alien, three Predators and two Alien vs. Predator movies will increase your viewing pleasure. A review of Lovecraft’s novella and Erich von Däniken’s drugstore bestseller “Chariots of the Gods” will enhance comprehension of the deeper themes.

In a good way, Prometheus feels like older and more literature- based Sci-Fi. After 33 years, director Ridley Scott returns to the same universe that he helped create in Alien. What Prometheus lacks in narrative structure, Ridley Scott makes up with visual clarity.

If you are seeking one of the most cerebral motion pictures of the summer, then see Prometheus before it departs the big screen. The Amazing Spider-Man takes over the IMAX screen on July 3.