An expensive, pretentious waste of time

Rating: 3/10 (1 July 2012)

Prometheus is almost without any redeeming characteristics. It is a recycled, old hat, extremely pretentious waste of money and talent relying on a mix of attempted but misguided gross-outs and pseudo-intellectual babble.
Despite the money spent on state-of-the-art effects, the visuals do not generate suspense or awe. It is all tired and since they are not added to a satisfying storyline or great characters, they just coldly glide past the viewer.
The supposedly big original thought about humans being engineered by extra-terrestrials is not new. It is a very old idea but they wanted to add something new to the Alien franchise. Ridley Scott himself has alluded to the fact that he wanted to make something original rather than a straight prequel. I think they would have been better off with a straight prequel. The twist they add to the Alien universe is forced and a let down. They just had to bring in that theme even if it meant permanently messing up a conceptual framework that had worked.
The dark, shadowy atmosphere of Alien is there but it is really tired and over done here. It seems to be there just to be there rather than contributing to anything in particular and also to confirm that, lest there be any doubt, this is part of the Alien franchise.
We get some action and gore as expected but again, it seems just to be there because it has to be. It is not suspenseful or interesting and it gets very cartoonish at times.
A word about the acting; these people had little to work with and were being directed in a context that went nowhere, so they cannot be blamed. Some of them had to physically work hard so you can say they tried.
As for the dialogue. Well, I am shocked that there are people who actually think the drivel in Prometheus is interesting, significant or insightful. Is this what we have come to? My heart is sinking.
The more I think of it, my rating of 3 is perhaps too high but given the production talent and money spent, some viewers might find that worth something and it could have been even worse so a 1 would be unfair.