You should know better...

Rating: 1/10 (10 June 2012)

In common with many people, I was really looking forward to seeing Prometheus. The movie has been heavily promoted as a prequel to the unsurpassed "Alien" and is directed by Ridley Scott himself. But shortly before I saw the film for myself I noticed a description on IMDb that filled me with foreboding: "Writer - Damon Lindelof". If you don't already know, you need to know that Damon Lindelof was one of the main writers of "Lost".
With that in mind, if you were one of the many who watched Lost through thick and thin, I reckon I can predict your response to Prometheus based on your response to the ending of Lost. If you felt the ending of Lost was good and you bought into the idea that the whole story arc was about character development and their "journey" to self-awareness, then you will probably think Prometheus is pretty good: deep questions (where do we come from), conflicted characters (searching for meaning) and mythology come to life (cave paintings and ancient languages). If, on the other hand, the ending of Lost left you feeling like you'd been mind-raped by a socially dysfunctional uber-geek with a Wikipedia cut-and-paste approach to story writing and a lazy contempt for the audience, then you'll absolutely HATE Prometheus.
I fall into the latter category. I very nearly walked out of this film half way through. I felt my intelligence was being insulted in almost every scene. All the other negative reviews here on IMDb are correct. I won't duplicate here the points that others have made but in summary: the plot is nonsensical; the crew don't behave in a believable manner; there are gaping holes in the underlying story; and, true to Lindelof style, meaningful questions merely serve as an excuse to ask more questions ("OK, now we know who made us, but who made them?") or serve up meaningless pseudo-philosophy ("It's what I choose to believe"). Even the unexplained "black goo" is a pathetic, transparent rip-off of the X- Files.
But you know what? If you go into this movie knowing it was written by Lindelof but expecting it to be good, you really should know better. I'll give you 2 facts about Lindelof that should tell you why: (1) on his IMDb profile page it says this about him: "He is the writer of the 2006 comic book miniseries "Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk". Although in a previous 2004-2005 miniseries "The Ultimates," the Hulk had been said to have killed 800 people while on a rampage in New York, Lindelof gave the more exact figure in "Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk" #2 (April 2006) as 815. 815 is the flight number of the doomed Oceanic flight from which the castaways were stranded on "Lost", and constitutes three of the cursed "numbers" used as a recurring plot point on that show." (2) He has been quoted as saying "The jumping off point for Prometheus for me is this: If somebody believed in God and you presented scientific evidence that directly contradicted that belief, what would he do? I find that question tremendously compelling."
The first quote, despite being geekery of mind-fracturing proportions, nonetheless demonstrates that Lindelof possesses a tiny little mind with as much imagination as a toenail (ooh! It's not 800, it's 815 because, you know, that's "meaningful" – in a comic). The second quote indicates that despite his tiny little mind, Lindelof apparently has a need and believes he has the ability to join some very serious company and address profound philosophical questions. He's wrong and someone needs to tell him. Perhaps we can strap him a rocket and fire him into space so we don't have to hear his idiotic screeching.
This film is a huge disappointment and I place the blame firmly with Lindelof. Scott managed to make the film look gorgeous but it's built on Lindelof sand. How Scott allowed himself to be taken in by Lindelof's dire story writing is inexplicable.