Here is a quick personal review of Prometheus. It has spoilers, so only read if you’ve seen it.
So many movies are so bad, I need to start venting somewhere 🙂 I also saw Snow White and the Huntsman, another turd in the blockbuster bowl, but that rant will have to wait for another day.
Prometheus
I really liked Fassbender’s android. He did a great job of putting together a presence that carried with it all the creepiness and loneliness of a automated being on a ship full of irrational humans. I do think that his character development got a little confused at the end. Does he have feelings? Is he just programmed? Or does he just do what needs to be done to make the script move forward rather than develop as a character?
The female lead was ok, but I was not really attached to her. I never found myself rooting for her like I did Ripley. For the first half of the movie she seemed like the attachment to the 5 o’clock shadow scientist, then she gets naked, and then runs around a lot. I never felt any emotion, even when they pulled the “I can’t get pregnant” bit, which of course led to her getting pregnant.
Now, it seems like every scientist on this ship is a little off. Take our helmets off 10 minutes after landing on a alien planet and entering an alien tomb? Ya that’s what smart people do. Freak out over a dead alien, but not even bat an eye at being helmet-less in an alien temple? It isn’t strange that your android seems to somehow know how to use all the alien technology in? Split up on the alien ship and not communicate over the radio?
As for these other characters, they all reminded me of past characters in the Alien franchise, which is really funny because they were so scared of following the familiar path. Maybe they thought that if they denied that it was an Alien prequel, we wouldn’t think of that guy as a mohawk wearing “Game-Over” character.
The sets were beautiful and the effects were great, the soundscapes were wonderful (but obviously borrowed again from previous Alien movies).
But the script was awful. I do not like Damon Lindelof’s writing. His style reminds me of being 16 and trying to be a philosopher sitting on the trunk of my car late at night.
“Hey dude, what if the Earth was seeded by aliens. Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Only if they came out of a light hole on a magic island man*.”
(*Lost reference in case you guys didn’t watch that series to the end).
Lindelof wants to bring up a bunch of big ideas, then fumbles to even partway deal with them. The android character has been handled in such beautiful ways in other Alien films, but his character development just fizzled away. And then he ends up a talking android head at the end? Didn’t they say they wanted to stay away from the tropes of previous Alien movies? And yet the android is torn in half by the Alien?
And finally. Why the hell did the space jockey not have his chest burst open on the damn platform !? Space jockey. Check. Pilot Room. Check. Scene where Space Jockey gets into chair to fly away. Check. Chest Bursting. Check. It doesn’t happen in the pilot’s room? WTF.
Someone said that it is just a set up for a sequel. Well screw that. Setting up a sequel is a business decision, not an excuse for a bad script.
I wanted this film to rock. It’s Ridley Scott, I have some faith in him. But chances are I will forget this movie in a couple of months. At least we still have Aliens.