Where no idiot has gone before

Rating: 1/10 (5 June 2012)

Prometheus is the story of a trillion-dollar mission to discover the origins of human life on a distant planet. Basically, this is supposed to be the greatest exploration undertaken in the history of mankind.
So who do they send? A gaggle of fractious goons whose collective scientific nous is rivalled only by that of the Three Stooges. Within minutes of touching down (conveniently beside the only 'man-made' structures on the planet, a'la 1960s Star Trek) the 'scientists' are yanking off their helmets, on the basis of 'it seems fine to me', dipping their fingers into strange organic ooze, and lugging a severed alien head back to an unquarantined spaceship in a sandwich bag.
Once there, they speedily discover the meaning of life. Then, while one of them gets a bit drunk, his two female companions decide it would be useful to stimulate the head electrically to reanimate it. They don't say why. They give it a bit too much juice, then too little,then dither over too much or too little like a couple of schoolgirls fiddling with a dicky bunsen burner, while the most important scientific discovery in human history waggles its ears and rolls its eyes - before eventually blowing up like a frog in a microwave.
Are the scientists abashed? Is the man angry? Do they all calm down and remember they have degrees in clever things, not diplomas in macramé? Do they heck.
The WHOLE MOVIE is a litany of ludicrous so-called science, schoolboy errors, and pseudo-profundity about the origin of species. Ironic really, when none of the crew would have a chance in hell in any sort of contest governed by Darwinian rules.
Crass stupidity is rampant in every department. Hi-tech helmets record every heartbeat - apparently until anything worth recording happens; stranded crewmates are abandoned to their fate in favour of a quick shag, and the spaceship door is opened to anyone who comes a-knocking. Although, after hitting the 'welcome' button, Idris Elba does do a double take and go 'Hold on a second!' but that might have just been an involuntary ad lib at his own character's baffling idiocy.
There is spectacular cinematography and effects, but not one iota of originality has been squandered on plot, subtext, tension or characters - which are as shallow as the Prometheus's muddy little gene pool.
Ridley Scott is a hero of mine, but Prometheus is not the intelligent, emotionally satisfying prequel that Alien deserves. It's a derisory, empty experience - and anyone who loved Alien is surely too old and too smart to be fobbed off with something this bad just because it's shiny.