Beyond the good looks, there's absolutely nothing

Rating: 3/10 (1 June 2012)

I caught the midnight premiere of Prometheus last night, and left the cinema in a state of bewildered disappointment. Sure, it was a good looking film, but everything beyond that was at least bordering on awful. I guess this is largely because of my great expectations on the film (Scott's earlier SF movies rank amongst my favourite films), but there is no escaping the fact that the script is horrible.
Coming to IMDb, I was quite dumbfounded to see that it currently has an average grade of 9.0, and several reviews calling it "intelligent". Because that is exactly what this film most clearly isn't. The story is weak and frequently illogical, the characters wooden, and the action is predictable. This is a shame, because the ideas that it is based around are interesting to explore.
The most grating parts are where characters essentially discuss philosophy (why are we doing this, what are we seeking, what is the difference between men and machines). I would describe it as if it was written by angsty 14-year olds, if it wasn't for the fact that I don't want to insult 14-year olds. It is ham-handed, shallow and riddled with cliché.
The characters' behaviour is often highly implausible and/or erratic. Sometimes I got the feeling that there are scenes missing that would make sense of what happens, but there is enough stupidity in what's there to make me doubt it would make a difference. There is no real journey for any of them, and there is hardly personality enough among them all to match even one of the characters in the first Alien film.
Speaking of the old film, it is also sad to see how much they rehash old scenes. (cryopod awakening, stomach bursting, facehugging, alien oral fixation, android physical prowess, gruff weapon guys, alien in the escape pod, etc.)
The story has a lot of gaping holes. There is a lot unexplained, which could have heightened the mystery, but now only serves to provoke a "I don't buy that at all"-reaction.
In all, an utter disappointment, which gets three stars for the visuals and some residue sentiment from earlier films.