Prometheus

Ridley Scott no longer knows how to come up with something new. He intensively copies from Alien and subtly quotes other masters of the big screen (Kubrick, Lean), but he doesn’t manage to put together a sophisticated mythology from a lot of enigmatic allusions. The more consistently straightforward, less ostentatious final third of Prometheus, when broken bones, flamethrowers and heroic gestures take the place of tautologies that go nowhere and the attempt at philosophical sci-fi rapidly morphs into an intergalactic variation on rape-revenge movies (by which Scott again shows himself to be a filmmaker capable of unusual feminine empathy and very clever use of gender stereotypes). The change of approach to the material is so sudden and unexpected that it gives rise to the hypothesis that perhaps the director was playing a cruel joke at the expense of the excited viewers. It’s as if he thought, “fine, they wanted something spectacular, so I’ll really prepare them for it at the beginning, but then I can more brutally bring them back to reality with a guilty-pleasure genre movie.” However, I rather see the reason for that in the necessity of cutting the film short than in the director’s sense of irony, which means that we will have to wait for the full-fledged Prometheus to arrive in the autumn, when the director’s cut will be released (after Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood, I’m starting to wonder if this isn’t actually a clever marketing move – to give viewers the feeling that a distinctive creative work was butchered by evil studio bosses and if they want to see the film as it was originally intended, they will have to spend more money on the DVD). Prometheus is a breathtakingly unstylish product with an unclear purpose. Because it doesn’t offer a satisfactory answer, both its suspense and its stumbling block consist in the prolonged uncertainty triggered by the advertising campaign. I’m afraid that the film’s “point”, which is very funny in its own way, will neither make anyone angry nor elicit a sly smile on the second attempt. If the aim of the film was to cause embarrassment, it accomplished its mission, but it doesn’t offer satisfying summer entertainment. By that, I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy it. I did, but similarly as I did with Pitch Black, in whose case the price-performance ratio was significantly different. 75% (02/06/2012)

Pretend you’re going to watch Alien vs. Predator 3 without the Predators and you’ll be ecstatic. The first third is an absolute sci-fi orgasm – exciting, epic, atmospherically captivating, visually engaging, with attractive actors and a promise of great things to come. Everything here is so perfect down to every tiny detail that one wants to cry with happiness. Plus there are some nice ideas conveyed through the dialogue (and monologues). The second third slows the pace down and brings a more intimate tone when it tries to tell us more about the characters. The last third is hastily put together action horror with butchered editing and storytelling, which doesn’t elaborate on the originally outlined themes, and is ridden with genre clichés and Emmerichian heroism. Luckily, the closing scene setting up a sequel somewhat mitigates the disappointment. Fantastically shot piece of screenwriting crap. I feel cheated, Ridley. (01/06/2012)

Prometheus is a pretty decent sci-fi, but at times it has almost fatal sci-fi related flaws. It begins at an amazing pace. The story is timeless, imaginative and it has a great pace due to the strange atmosphere. The second half is much weaker, everything begins to be a routine and the worst of all is, spoiler alert, the alien finale. That really pissed me off. Prometheus was supposed to be pure sci-fi with everything it entails and not the prequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien. The whole time it made a completely different impression and in the finale he turns it into this and thinks I will fall on my butt… I feel really sorry for that. Visually, it is absolutely amazing, and that also counts for something. (03/09/2013)

I think that there’s about an hour of film missing. An hour to work on the relationships, to say where they found out certain things or else somehow to show that these are just assumptions, to take their time a bit and not to hurry on ahead at breakneck speed. In some places I prayed to be have the time to rummage about in the environments presented. I have no gripes about the story, looking for an answer to the question that has no answer (that guy died immediately in the first scene) is just a catalyst for investigating possibilities and space. An attempt to go further. Visually, it’s top-notch, Ridley made sure of that. Similarly, he took great pains over the casting, each actor fits their role perfectly. Noomi is really fine, but Michael Fassbender easily dominates the picture. It’s a shame too that Guy Pearce made such a brief appearance. The ending was rather surprising the way it broke down into a regular massacre. I have the feeling that Alien DNA harms this movie, the same as the hype and trailers revealing too much. I look forward to the director’s cut. (12/06/2012)

Spoiler impressionology! It's been exactly ten years, give or take a few days, since I saw the first Alien, the film that piqued my interest in cinema as a whole, and the question of what came before has actually been gnawing at me for a decade. So from a purely subjective point of view, I have no reservations about it because the film answered my questions. First of all, it confirmed that the aliens are a biological weapon that probably cannot be controlled by anyone. So far, so good. But when I look at it with hindsight, aided by a brief post-film debate, I don't quite understand why the writers had to break the film into survival horror in the second half, endowing the characters with the logic of incompetent teenagers. Visually, including Streitenfeld's excellent audio, there's nothing to fault it for (well, except for Weyland's mask, that's horrible) but there's not a single climactic scene, something that would draw me to the movie theater for a second screening. This is actually a huge shame because, for the first hour, Scott was creating a more interesting world than James Cameron has recently. After leaving the theatre I was ready to give it four stars, given that the marketing campaign had gone beyond me, but I thought about the film a bit too much during the twenty-minute journey home. (07/06/2012)