Review of Prometheus (2012) by Harrycorbin — 13 Jun 2012

Prior to watching the premiere of Alien in 1979, I had been to the dentist to have my wisdom teeth removed. Needless to say, I was in an immense amount of pain during the movie, which was compounded by the three camera shot of Harry Dean Stantons' stomach exploding on the dinner table. That moment in time is and always will be favorable branded in my youthful memory. Thirty-two years later, the memory of Prometheus, will unfortunately fade after many happy hour rants and moments of solitary silence of my obvious disappointment about this movie. My disappointment runs so deep that I do not know where to begin about how I feel about the film. Nevertheless, I will do my best to convey my opinion. The movie starts out wonderfully with this colorful other world landscape, which leads to the introduction of one of the "engineers" of human life, and then fades into the future to modern life and its discovery of the past life by present day archeologist's. It is sad to admit, but had the movie ended after the first ten minutes then I would've accepted it as a short film or a long music video. However it didn't end after the first ten minutes; hence the need for this unfavorable review. As in Alien, Aliens and Alien Resurrection, there's a robot. The problem with the robot in Prometheus is that it is an opportunist, which gives it a more human like quality rather a machine like quality. At the beginning of the movie the robot is employed by its programmer, but at the end of the movie, after its employer is all of sudden deceased, the robot decides to switch its allegiance to the only person left alive at the end: the same person whom the robot had tried to kill earlier in the movie. Since when did a robot possess the ability to think on its own to the point of being concerned with self preservation. it's a robot. Or is it? Another problem with the movie is that there's an intentional implanting of an alien species for no apparent reason. The robot finds the beginning of a possible alien life form, who then slips this life form into someone's drink, and then this someone drinks the drink, and then this someone has sex with someone else, which causes that someone to become pregnant. The person that is initially infected by the disease becomes sick and dies. The person that becomes pregnant is informed that she is almost at the beginning of her second trimester, which prompts her to logically question how could that be? I'm still asking myself that same question. This revelation of course causes her to take matters into her own hands, as she so characteristically does throughout the movie. Free from the baby alien, or so we think, the victim or the protagonist, you choose, now discovers that her employer has secretly "stowed away, " and has plans to meet the sole surviving engineer of life. So with his posse, the money man ventures into the dragons lair; only to die quickly along with everyone else. Which brings me to my other point of contention with the movie - death happens often and quickly towards the end of the film There's the one, two, three, four, five punch by the sole surviving engineer. Then there's a suicide mission by a very important person on the ship, along with two of his shipmates, and I'm not talking about the Heaven's Gate Cult. Then there's a certain headless someone, whom proposes a merger of the two opposing camps. How convenient on his behalf, since he no longer has a head, but how he is able to make this proposal without a head is mind boggling to begin with. But it does, and well...

When I first started writing this review, I had given the movie four out of ten, but I'm now lowering that to three out of ten, because I've digested more of the movie over the past thirty minutes, and the taste has become more rancid. An afternoon rental at best.