The best thing in Prometheus appears in the first minute. An enigmatic figure and a wild landscape, in a scene highly reminiscent of something from Frankensteins Monster. With a title like "Prometheus", I was kind of expecting that sort of story. Unfortunately, it goes to another place entirely; one we did not need to see again.
Prometheus ends up being two different movies. It wants to be a grand, philosophical sci-fi which dares to confront the big questions about life, but it spends far more of its time paying lip service to its predecessor. Prometheus makes the typical mistake of prequel movies, in that it devotes itself to examining unimportant details from the source material. Most of this movie is just a re-tread of the Alien imagery, with scenes and story panning out in exactly the same way. It quickly stops being its own movie, and those big questions become embellishments to an Alien remake. Even if you just want to see an Alien prequel/remake, you'll probably be frustrated by the way it messes with what was previously established in past movies.
Saying that, at least they get some of it right. The classic Giger imagery is excellent, there is plenty of atmosphere, and the body horror is some of the most effective and disgusting I have ever seen in cinema.
Unfortunately, with the exception of Fassbender's android, the characters aren't as good. Fassbender does the stilted, conflicted, inhumane robot very well, and in a better movie, he would have served as the protagonist. Alongside him, we get lots of blandish, unmemorable characters who are doomed to make all the stupid horror movie mistakes (despite being genius scientists).
Prometheus is a flawed film. It fails because it decided to stick close to the films we've already seen, and refuses to give us anything new. Had it been more willing to take risks, we might have got an interesting sci-fi with more to say than "so this is where the xenomorphs come from", or "here is another Alien film, we're just too ashamed to admit it in the title".
Another Pointless Prequel
The best thing in Prometheus appears in the first minute. An enigmatic figure and a wild landscape, in a scene highly reminiscent of something from Frankensteins Monster. With a title like "Prometheus", I was kind of expecting that sort of story. Unfortunately, it goes to another place entirely; one we did not need to see again.
Prometheus ends up being two different movies. It wants to be a grand, philosophical sci-fi which dares to confront the big questions about life, but it spends far more of its time paying lip service to its predecessor. Prometheus makes the typical mistake of prequel movies, in that it devotes itself to examining unimportant details from the source material. Most of this movie is just a re-tread of the Alien imagery, with scenes and story panning out in exactly the same way. It quickly stops being its own movie, and those big questions become embellishments to an Alien remake. Even if you just want to see an Alien prequel/remake, you'll probably be frustrated by the way it messes with what was previously established in past movies.
Saying that, at least they get some of it right. The classic Giger imagery is excellent, there is plenty of atmosphere, and the body horror is some of the most effective and disgusting I have ever seen in cinema. Unfortunately, with the exception of Fassbender's android, the characters aren't as good. Fassbender does the stilted, conflicted, inhumane robot very well, and in a better movie, he would have served as the protagonist. Alongside him, we get lots of blandish, unmemorable characters who are doomed to make all the stupid horror movie mistakes (despite being genius scientists).
Prometheus is a flawed film. It fails because it decided to stick close to the films we've already seen, and refuses to give us anything new. Had it been more willing to take risks, we might have got an interesting sci-fi with more to say than "so this is where the xenomorphs come from", or "here is another Alien film, we're just too ashamed to admit it in the title".