Review of Prometheus (2012) by Michael Y — 14 Dec 2014

It's all rather ... vague. The purpose. The motives. The characters. Even the creatures.

Some very nice mechanical and landscape design work. Some very good performances (especially so given how little the actors had to work with); Michael Fasbinder being especially fun. I enjoyed the nods to other films as a film-nerd Easter egg hunt.

However, between the mostly cookie cutter characters, the lack of clarity in both motives and threats, and the casual scientific destructiveness the like of which I haven't seen since the anthropology demolitionist of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," I couldn't take any of it seriously. Neither could the rest of the audience, who laughed deliriously at some of the creature attacks.

A later conversation:

"So if you have an alien face hugger fetus removed via c-section that you though you killed by decontamination, wouldn't you mention it and suggest a biopsy of it to those people you stumble into afterwords? Wait, did I mention that you were also quarantined because you may have had an alien infection?".

Those people weren't scientists. They were children calling themselves scientists while destroying things and flouting any semblance of scientific precaution. They lost me from the point they landed their ship right on top of valuable archaeological evidence. 'Oh, look. There's an ancient alien roadway leading up to an ancient alien building. Lets land on top of that roadway and tear up the ground with our propulsion system instead of ... lets say, landing off to the side.'.

"We have GPS units that will tell us where we are based on the coordinate system our red laser flashy orbs just mapped, but we got lost on our way out of the non-pyramid shaped pyramid!".

The red laser flashy orb mapping system was kind of cool. A rare bright spot amongst the wretchedness.

" I partially blame myself. I went into PROMETHEUS with expectations but you could drive a bus through the plot holes".

PROMETHEUS had such contempt for the audience. Unfortunately, that contempt seems to have been justified. I plan to cleanse my palate by seeing CABIN IN THE WOODS tonight. 'Cause we know Joss Whedon respects the audience.

"Seeing Prometheus made me question my (now percieved) greatness of Alien and Aliens".

Oh, no. they were/are great.

"But it made me question it because it was soo bad. SOOOOOO bad.".