Exceeded high expectations

Rating: 9/10 (24 September 2012)

I read lots of reviews before I saw this film as it is perhaps THE most anticipated film of my 46-year life. Interestingly, the reviews themselves are a bit of a study in psychology, with as many well-written excellent reviews as there are well-written poor reviews. I understand that I am not alone in my unprecedented anticipation of this film and I understand how important this franchise is to many sci-fi fans.
One of the positive review commonalities is the general consensus that the film is artistically shot. I agree wholeheartedly (and wow!) The picture had an unusual and uneasy feel to it, which I really liked. CGI is very near the point of being impossible to distinguish from real-life and this film exemplifies that. As many have complained, the character development could have been better--as could have been the casting--and I agree with this, as well, but that's about where I stop agreeing with most of the nay-sayers. I feel bad for many of the nay-sayers since they seem to have anticipated the film as much as I did, yet were disappointed for whatever reason (that often had more to do with expectations than anything else).
I would recommend that you do what I did (and what many recommend) and that's not to go into viewing this with any preconceived notions. Try to think of it as a fresh film. I was somehow able to do this and I loved it! It far exceeded my high but reasonable expectations. I consider myself fortunate that prequels to my two favorite sci-fi movies (Aliens and Carpenter's The Thing) came out within a year of each other and I'm looking forward to the next installments of both! I'm guessing I'll watch Promethius more often than The Thing, only because the effects are more spectacular. I've only seen Promethius once so far but I plan to stream it tonight (since it was released on a streaming basis today) and will purchase the Blu-ray version the day it's released. This may well be my very favorite movie to date but admittedly, I'm not as much of a cerebral movie-goer as I am an eye-candy/raw emotion movie-goer.
I recommend folks watch anything that rates a 7 or more on IMDb and while this film ranks well-above a seven, here, given the highly emotional and conscientious nature of many of the negative reviews, I'd say it would have rated in the eights if folks were a little more level-headed about it.