Prometheus tries to kindle new flame to the Alien franchise but fizzles out in torrent of special effects.

Rating: 4/10 (4 June 2012)

I am truly sorry to say that Prometheus is another soul-sapping disappointment typical of Hollywood thesedays. It is nowhere near as good as the trailer would like you to believe. Not only does it fail as a suspenseful horror or action flick, it falters as intelligent science-fiction by asking lots of "profound" questions about our existence which it fails to answer. You would be better served in both respects by watching The Thing Prequel or Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. And if you want a bald albino roider running about go no further than Far Cry The Movie.
Let's first say what is actually good about Prometheus. The sets, models, landscape shots, CGI, 3D effects, are all top-draw stuff. Ridley Scott has always been acclaimed as a visionary director and hasn't lost any of his touch on that score. The musical score itself by Mark Streitenfeld is another plus since it follows in the tradition of Jerry Goldsmith. The theme entitled "Life" is a very majestic and rousing piece that brings to mind a beautiful mix-match Blade Runner and Kingdom of Heaven. So there really is not a lot to criticize in terms of production values except for some really bad prosthetic make-up applied to radically age one actor.
The biggest problems are the lack of purpose, story and decent characterization. The writers Jon Spaihts and Damon Laurence Lindelof should take the blame here. Maybe they wrote a fantastic script which was subsequently dumbed down or mutilated in the politicized process of production but I highly doubt it.
Taking a Greek legend is actually a good starting point for a story about how mankind, in their arrogance and delusions of self-grandeur, seek out answers about existence and the gift of new technology to prolong their life-span. When they finally meet their makers (the Engineers) they get a nasty surprise in the form of giant supermen, infectious diseases and rapidly evolving serpentine lifeforms. Despite at least three belligerent threats, none work particularly well to drive the story.
It should have been told entirely from the perspective the quirky android David (Michael Fassbender) since he's arguably the least "artificial person" in the whole movie. Just dwell on that for a moment. A robot has more depth and character than the entire combined cast of 16 humans!
I guess the ones who are supposed to stand out are:
Noomi Rapace as Elizabeth Shaw, Logan Marshall-Green as Holloway (the Jar Jar Binks of Prometheus), Charlize Theron as Meredith Vickers, and Idris Elba (aka Stringer Bell) as Captain Janek. Sean Harris plays a geologist Filfield kinda bears a weak resemblance to Hudson. None of them come up close to calibre of the characters from the quadrology. Even Alien Resurrection, for all its flaws, had some witty and humorous dialogue courtesy of writer Joss Whedon of Firefly and Avengers fame.
In an attempt to please fanboys, Prometheus liberally brands itself visual references and lines of dialogue from the originals. For example, when Janek makes sexual advances towards Miss Vickers she turns him down coldly and he asks whether she is actually robot whereupon she gives the curt command: "My quarters. Ten minutes." Far from being the ice-queen equivalent of Carter Burke I warmed to her as the closet person to Ripley; Vickers was the only one with any common-sense regard for quarantine procedures and ship safety.
What made the originals so good was a strong protagonist played by Signourney Weaver who was supported at least five characters worth caring about. They were usually all closed in together by claustrophobic environments and the compelling drama lay in all their interactions and reactions to a largely unseen menace. In the first two films there are several sit-down meetings where a dwindling crew sit around a table to debating their worsening situation. You see them all change as the day goes from a normal workshift or milkrun mission to an escalating nightmare. The scenes of shifting balance of power after the death of Captain Dallas or in the APC after the first swarm attack in Aliens are key higlights.
There is nothing to compare in Prometheus. The crew are woken from hypersleep, they stroll down to the cafeteria where they pair off into separate corners of the room and fail to interact with one another. You know right here that something is wrong and the movie gets progressively worse, resorting to clichés already used up by hack-for-hire Paul Anderson for his double franchise-wrecker Alien versus Predator (2003).
Sorry, that is unfair. At least AvP knows what it is and doesn't adopt airs and graces like Prometheus. Honestly, there were times that I rather wish I was watching AvP Requiem with the pizza delivery boy and his high-school prom-queen.
Let's not get started on the exploding jockey head, the giant octopus facehugger, the zombie who takes out half the non-speaking cast, or the alien that looks like a buck-toothed hill-billy cousin to H.R. Giger's terrifying creation. I won't go on any more about the laughable gore, cartoon-like deaths or the plot holes through which one could pilot the Nostromo.
I usually love to sit through bad B-movies with friends just to laugh at such deficiencies and infelicities. One cannot be so lenient when they appear here because Ridley Scott and his moonstruck underlings really have no excuses.
I hate myself for sounding this bitter. I so-wanted the original creator to resuscitate the whole franchise and expand it in new exciting directions. But to quote the distraught voice of Elizabeth: "I was wrong. We were so wrong. I'm so sorry".