Pro-awfulness

Rating: 1/10 (11 June 2012)

Partially good...
Some of the acting is good, the cinematography is good, as well as some of the special effects. These are a few things that have helped to prevent this film from receiving a 0/5 rating.
It is worth watching for fans of the Alien movies, although they will be disappointed: this film should have been, a sci-fi masterpiece setting new standards like Ridley Scott's movie 'Alien'.
Scott is apparently interested in making sequels, although has indicated that that this movie is meant to be 'self-contained' (in case no sequels are made). As well, he has tried to dissuade comparison to 'Alien', insisting that the movie is not intended to be a 'prequel' but a stand- alone film that is simply set in the same 'universe'.
Actions speak louder than words: this film is a prequel, which is clearly evident within the film. Scott is inviting direct comparison to 'Alien', and all other films in the series. This film falls far short of all of them.
There are so many plot holes and screenplay/writing problems (thinking about them after the movie just makes it even worse) and they simply cannot be waved away.
And these problems are literally countless.
We could say that aliens are completely alien to us and so therefore will do alien things: unreasonable, unexplainable, inexplicable. Even if we waived the problems involving the 'aliens', and what they do, it would still leave countless problems with just the human characters. Perhaps we can't understand the intentions or the motivations of aliens... but humans? They do things that just make no sense, and at times the plot is advanced by characters that just burst into a scene and tell us what is going on (although how they got to that point, what their reasoning or rationale is, or how they know what they know, or how they put 2+2 together, is completely and entirely unexplained). Is this bad writing? Yeah... it is.
The "Luke, I am your father" scene is even cringe-worthy bad-writing bad.
Online reviews, and sites that go over the problems with this film, are unfortunately (for the most part) correct. However, it is still worth watching (perhaps not paying to see it in the theatre), especially for fans of the Alien movies, and here's why:
It could be at least partially redeemed by a director's cut that added at least 30 minutes (especially 'character development' back-story minutes). It could actually be improved by the addition of as much as 45 minutes, or more, of footage if it also closed at least some of the major plot holes and answered some questions.
Additionally, if Scott made a sequel that actually completed (and helped explain) major plot holes and story-line problems, that would improve Prometheus. But lets be clear; that sequel would have to be unquestionably a 5/5 star movie: an instant classic - a film that, like the original 'Alien' set new standards.
There are so many problems to fix, however, that I don't even know where he would begin: just one example, out of many, is the ship ramming scene.
Here is a 'cut-n-paste' from another review:
Two crewmembers, who we didn't get to know, don't understand, who have no background or interest or passion or struggles or emotions, other than a (very) shallow bet: Choose to stay with the captain when he goes kamikaze. Why? Because the pilot, solely chosen from all humans by the richest trillionaire on the planet, to fly the spaceship, is a (very bad) pilot. And in the next scene, ironically, what unfolds is that the captain presses a few buttons, goes on autopilot, says HANDS OFF, everyone raises their hands, and no piloting is done and they all die, implying the other two didn't have to be there to die at all. They don't even eject an escape pod or anything after the hands off, nothing. The captain just sings his little song in happiness. What the hell!? They're going to DIEEEEE. All they say is, let's keep that bet in heaven. Come on! You don't die like that. There's no, OMG I'm dying, no emotions, not even a cliché I love you man, or screaming, they just keep the bet, sing a song, do a dance and die, two of them (perhaps all three) completely unnecessarily.
I understand that reviewer: Where to even start with this scene?
If the 'Pilot' character was fully defined it might be possible to make this scene more emotional, dramatic, important and even more viable if explained in a sequel – but it would take so much screen time that it probably wouldn't be worth it. And if you did the same with all of the other irrational scenes in the film then you would end up with a sequel that would take you many days to watch as it would be that long. If you were a director-wizard and managed to explain this scene in just a few minutes, you would still have to do the same with countless other scenes, many of which weren't even half as good as this one.
Personally, I thought the CGI sequences involving the squid alien near the end appeared quite unrealistic (bad CGI). But also, in my mind (the whole time) was this question: how did the 5lb squid alien grow to 5000lbs with no bio-matter to consume?
Is breathing air that fattening?
John Travolta gave us Battlefield Earth, David Lynch gave us Dune: they both thought that they were working on masterpieces – compared to Prometheus, those movies were actually quite good.
Anyone posting a review greater than 6 is probably young enough that they didn't see Alien, or Aliens (or even Alien 3), in the theatre - not true 'Alien' fans, or fans of 'good' sci-fi in any way.