It's just not that smart.

Rating: 5/10 (19 April 2020)

Though the opening is a bit jarring and out of place, I would say that the first 15 minutes of the film are pretty brilliant, taking the audience in with beautiful cinematography and landscape. Like Ridley Scott's other films, it feels as though it is being filmed at an actual location and not being made by studio people drinking coffee and sitting in front of a green screen. Of course, what makes a film isn't just how it looks.
For all its visual flair, "Prometheus" is undone by substandard writing.
First of all, too many of the characters either have dull or inconsistent personalities and motivations, or just aren't fleshed out at all. Also, there are too many characters, period. Don't get me wrong, it's possible to make a well-written film with a myriad of characters; however, they need to be presented in an interesting way through the film or developed memorably with what screen time they have, and Prometheus does neither of those things. The notable exception here would be the character of David. Michael Fassbander is great as usually, and his performance brings out a lot of subtleties to this character who holds a fascination with the alien form and a hatred of humanity. Charlize Theron as Vickers was also great, and though her character sometimes felt like a tough captain archetype, we could always clearly understand her actions. On the other side of the spectrum for me was Elizabeth, whom one could call the protagonist of the film. Her religious crusader/superhero complex is so large and her head so far up her ass that I find it impossible to believe that she was chosen to be an astronaut at all, much less one with a crucial role in the most important mission in history.
Even worse is the dialogue. I kid you not, there is literally a line where the pilot asks Charlie why they shouldn't just wait until the morning, and he replies with "No. It's Christmas, and I want my present now". The script was written either by someone who completely fails to write quirky dialogue or someone who doesn't understand how actual human beings talk. When the characters aren't busy making a complete parody of normal human interactions, they are mostly standing around explaining the plot. As a side note, I would like to point out that despite dedicating his entire time to studying human language and watching film, David somehow didn't know what "casualty" meant.
Speaking of which, the plot and the narrative are so unfocused that it's frustrating. We start with an exploration of Elizabeth's past traumas and her strong belief in God, something that doesn't get resolved by the end or left for us to ponder in any meaningful way. We are also presented with the concept of human mortality and the significance or insignificance of a creator, something that doesn't get resolved by the end or left for us to ponder in meaningful way. Another question brought up is the nature of these creators and their past, and... you guessed it!
I'm gonna make one final point here, and that is addressing the 2001: A Space Odyssey comparison. 2001 was an amazing film because it explored the film medium in a unique way and had a purposefully unconventional structure, visuals that transcended its time, great use of music outside the universe, and a great antagonist. Prometheus has maybe half of those things. This comparison is completely undeserved.
I'm not even going to get into the litany of stupid character decisions(especially considering they're supposed to be the BEST SCIENTISTS IN THE WORLD), since everyone has talked about that enough. For now, I'll just say that these stupid decisions are probably the most the writing has to offer for me in terms of actually getting me to think. And that's not a good thing.