Duped again on the promise of a good Alien/s movie

Rating: 1/10 (4 June 2012)

Let me start by saying I like to think of myself as a reviewer for the average Joe. I.E I'm not into art-house movies, contemporary foreign movies or generally movies that it's 'hip' to like but the average guy would be bored to tears with. That said let me let you know my feelings on Ridley Scott's latest offering Prometheus. To be fair I actually enjoyed the start and it showed great promise for what was to follow. Beautiful cinematography and an introduction to the ships android David were well executed and tee'd up the film ready for something great. However this is the point where it all fell apart for me. We see Noomi Rapace introduced as the strong, intelligent heroine and Logan Marshall-Green as her sidekick/partner. There are then a string of what I like to think of as 'random' characters thrown in to the mix. For instance I still have no idea what Charlize Theron's character's purpose was or what she was doing there? We have a captain that doesn't seen to care about anything and can't even fly his own ship (as pointed out by one of his own crew members!). There are then other characters that are just there to fill space. Remember the scenes in Alien and Aliens (see my Aliens review) where the crew mix in the canteens? They had a realistic feel to them and interacted with each other in a natural and almost (for us) voyeuristic way. This not only heightened the tension but made us care for these 'real' people. Sadly on Prometheus we have none of that, characters forcefully spit out their dialogue (often inappropriate for the situation) and as a consequence you never really care if they live or die. Then we come to what should be the star if the show, the aliens - I mean after all however you dress this up it's an Alien movie right?! That in my opinion is its greatest failing. The large, plastic looking, humanoid creatures are far more at home on a Sci-fi channel Saturday movie than a multi-million dollar blockbuster. They look ridiculous. As for the tension, terror, suspense we were treated to in the aforementioned Alien movies, Prometheus is completely devoid of that. It takes almost an hour before anything of note happens and even then it's such a non-event it leaves you looking at your watch wondering how long is left. Like the rest of the film the ending is just as poor and again leaves you feeling no empathy with the lead character or concern for her situation. Alien movies aside and judging this film in its own right as a Sci-fi, action blockbuster actually does it a dis-service as the promise of some kind of link to the other Alien movies is all I found myself hoping for all the way through as it's ploy to be 'original' is so flawed. With the talent on hand from the director, actors, effects makers and writers, not to mention the licence to use the Alien franchise this film should have been nothing short of amazing. Instead what we were presented with was a boring, confused, badly written (and in place acted) mish-mash of very amateur looking scenes. My plea to Hollywood..Please give the fans what they want next time (see the Avengers) and don't let over-zealous directors dictate a film into becoming a shining example of how not to do cinema such as Prometheus.