Good ideas poorly executed

Rating: 5/10 (30 September 2012)

This movie is a mess. It feels like three different sci-fi stories were butchered to make a single one - but not a single great one, no. A single mess of badly cut scenes, where there's no focus except to throw a jumble of scenes at us.
It starts off rather well - we're introduced to all the crew members, the basic plot is kicked off and we discover what Prometheus set out to do. As in all traditional sci-fi movies of this kind, there follows a discovery which turns against the people involved ... and then it all becomes a giant heap of badly connected scenes - a dozen different plot elements are thrown at you, none of which are really resolved or fully explained. It's like they sat around a table and said "what crazy stuff can we think off" and then proceeded to throw it into the movie. The worst part, is that these different elements are barely even connected. In scene A something happens and in scene B, the characters seem to have forgotten all about it.
Example: When Elizabeth suddenly becomes pregnant (without her belly showing it AT ALL), the whole "you should go in stasis" scene makes no sense. Crew members assist David in trying to get her ready for stasis - why? And when she does escape, no-one seems to be following her - which makes little sense. Even worse, is when she returns and walks in on the old geezer and it's as if nothing happened! No-one asks why she's covered from head to toe in blood and why her belly is stapled. Neither does she even mention what happened and neither does David respond. It feels as if half a dozen scenes here are missing!
There's also no real focus on anything - the movie can't seem to decide who is the main protagonist. Is it Elizabeth? Is it David the android? Elizabeth is no Ripley, however, and none of the characters really stand out except for David. Neither can the movie decide on a "goal" until the very last few minutes and then you're left with a cliff hanger. Really, Ridley? Really? Sure, there's a lot of great ideas there, but most of them have nothing to cling on to. When a dozen different things happen at once, it's hard to care or to be on edge. The pacing really is that poorly done.
There's also too many mysteries and barely any answers. Over half the things that happen in the movie are left unexplained and at best, there's a lot of conjecture based on small hints and even those don't fully make sense. For example David experimenting on Charlie and then acting as if he forgot all about that, not paying any attention to the current state of Charlie - does that make sense? Common sense would dictate, that David would keep a close watch on Charlie to monitor what is happening. It's also not explained at all, why David can read and use the markings that are on the walls, using the controls as if they were some ancient language - not to mention how he can speak the alien's language when it's very well known that ancient languages are a complete mystery to us. In the end, you're left with very few answers and a lot of guessing and because of the many elements that make no sense, guessing seems pointless since it involves wading through the false facts and poor character behaviour.
The small saving grace of this movie, is the wink towards the Alien movies - although, in a way, I wish they had left the origin of aliens alone. Part of the strength of those movies, is the mystery and Prometheus seems to try and answer some of those questions despite it barely answering any of its own. We are given an idea how aliens came to life, but why did they create them? Was it a biological weapon? And if so, why would they send it to earth? Were there different factions where some wanted mankind to evolve while the other sees us as a threat? Whatever the answer, a lot of it makes little sense and that seems to be the underlying theme with the movie. Even when you're given "answers", they only reveal more flaws in the flaky plot.
The end result is a movie which isn't terrible, but just is too rough to be considered a classic.