Prometheus
18 June 2012, early evening
Reviews of Prometheus have been more mixed than I thought they would be. I suppose it has a lot to live up to, being a sort-of prequel to Alien, directed by the man himself Ridley Scott. I’ll be upfront and say I enjoyed the movie. Suck it, haters.
Prometheus begins with some strange Alien dude eating some strange fluid that ends up destroying his body as he watches a spaceship fly away. He falls into a river and dissolves away. The implication is that this is the source of life on Earth. Fast forward a long time and you have scientists discovering cave paintings about these Aliens, figuring out where they originally came from, and then heading off on a grand adventure of discovery. Like the original Alien, that all turns to shit.
There are countless nods to Alien throughout the film. So many so there isn’t much point trying to list them. So many that comparisons are inevitable. The basic structure of the entire film mirrors Alien, more or less. The problem here is that Alien is clearly the better film: it’s far more focused and coherent. Prometheus suffers from exploring too many mysteries and being a bit half-assed about resolving them. I don’t think every single question a movie asks needs to be spelled out clearly on the screen, but a film should probably make more of an effort than Prometheus does. Putting that aside, there is still a lot to like about Prometheus. The specials effects are amazing. It’s visually stunning. There are several great actors in the movie, who probably could have done more with a better script. Michael Fassbender continues to be awesome, and Charlize Theron continues to be omega-hot. The film is much faster paced than the original alien. Things get weird much quicker. (The movie opens with an alien, after all.) You can tell the film maker and his team were trying to out do themselves when it came to grossing out the audience. It isn’t enough to simply have an alien rip out of someones guts. Here I think Prometheus is most successful. You leave the movie not wanting to touch anything, wishing you could seal up all your orifices.
Go watch this film.
Really? I found it slow and very few of the open questions (or strange events) were answered, e.g. http://redlettermedia.com/red-letter-media-talks-about-prometheus-spoilers/
by Ryan on June 18 2012, 9:02 pm #
Compared to the original Alien the pacing is so quick. I mean, the movie opens with an Alien. In the original film the actual Alien doesn’t make an appearance for ages. And yeah, lots of questions are unanswered. Does that really matter? They answer enough for the movie to make sense. I think the film would have been better with more focus, though.
by ramanan on June 18 2012, 10:13 pm #
A much more critical take on the movie.
by ramanan on June 22 2012, 11:27 am #