Prometheus: Bringer of Flames

SPOILERIFIC:

 

So i finally saw it.

 

I was at a party the weekend it came out - when people arrived, they were sent to the Prometheus Corner where they shouted at each other as to who hated it more. 

 

So i watched it on DVD months later, late at night and quite tired, because i thought that would improve it...

 

Apparently, it did. 

 

I had a few problems with it, but overall i wondered what everyone's problems were - i mean it wasn't great but hardly the worst thing ever made...?

 

I rang my friend Pat, puzzled - what's everyone's problem with this film? It's just a big budget horror movie, no more moronic than 'Alien v Predator', or any other stupid alien monster genre horror film...

 

So pat then spent about fifteen minutes taking me through it, explaining in reasonable detail why it is so utterly idiotic, over and over again...

 

So, obviously i was too tired to watch it, or had switched off part of my brain, because like dominoes falling i went... 'oh yeah... that was pretty dumb wasn't it? yeah, right, that doesn't make sense does it... a xenobiologist walks up to an alien thing that looks like a cobra and goes coochee coochee coo...!' ' 

 

Pat had so many examples, over and over, until i just started laughing at how idiotic i had been thinking it was not that idiotic - it is, it is that idiotic...

 

I don't actually think it is as utterly nonsensical as 'Battleship', where not even the premise makes sense, or is explained or anything, but it really is a thoroughly badly written piece of major film-making.

 

The weird thing is - it would have taken so little to correct it - just a polish!

 

And most of the idiocy seems to be a result of slavishly sticking to the plot/formula of the original 'Alien', in bizarre ways that totally subvert the new plot, the characters, and the point of what's occurring in the first place - ?

 

And the science versus faith stuff is really badly done (this from a 'believer') - it's like they don't understand the issues at all.

 

This is despite the fact that a lot of the film works, themetically, and there are some amazing scenes, like the map room, and that audacious scene where Noomi auto-terminates her pregnancy, and the idea of the creatures themselves being bio-weapons, and the giant face-hugger! 

 

I loved all that - but it's all just ruined by... well, just about everything else in the film. So - anything that works in it is all for nothing - it's just a massive waste of time and effort.

 

Anyway, so i am in agreement - really, really, very shamefully bad...

 

Also Mossman - i agree with most of your review - although i actually think you could have gone in much harder - but i disagree about Idris Elba. He's usually very good, but here he is awful - his accent and approach to the role seems to change with every scene, including some very bizarre choices and reactions, etc - but i think Fassbinder, aka Lawrence of Robotica /Androidia was excellent, and almost saved the film. 

 

Mind you, the cast is mostly excellent - none of them deserve this level of poor screenwriting.

 

Worst moment for me, given that either boredom (i was never bored) or mean-spiritedness are my personal keys to bad film-making, is easily Charlize Theron's death late in the proceedings - what were they thinking? 

 

(They weren't.)