Whaaa?

Rating: 4/10 (12 June 2012)

When I first saw the trailer for Prometheus, I thought that Ridley Scott had forgotten about Alien, and had accidentally made the same film twice. Then I found out that it was actually going to tie in to the Alien story somehow, and I got excited. My son and I watched the Alien quadrilogy in preparation. We saw Prometheus on opening weekend. My son, who is 13 and is impressed by explosions and CG effects, thought the movie was great. I, on the other hand, left the theater feeling like someone had blindfolded me, handed me a plate full of monkey s**t, and told me it was pumpkin pie. Where do I start? there are so many things wrong with this movie that I am feeling a little overwhelmed. From the time the crew arrives at their destination until the conclusion of the movie, none of the characters' actions follow any kind of logic. Scientists remove their helmets in an alien environment, perform Frankenstien-esque experiments with an alien head, treat a menacing cobra-like alien life form as if it were a garter snake, ignore any kind of anti-contamination protocol for either the planet or the ship, and generally do anything they can to ensure that they will all die horrible deaths. Add to that a confusing story line involving an overly-complicated plot to destroy humanity developed by our progenitors, Guy Pearce in mediocre age make-up, and an Android whose main function seems to be impersonating Lawrence of Arabia, and we have Prometheus, Ridley Scott's likely final word on the Alien Saga. I don't know how or why Scott strayed so far from the formula that made his original film so effective--believable characters, taut pacing, suspense building until you start to chew the ends of your fingers off--but the result is a film that will NOT be sitting next to my Alien collection on the DVD shelf.