Just saw "Prometheus." I can't even begin to express how disgusted and disappointed I am in this unbelievably stupid film. Do yourself a favor and watch the video "Everything Wrong with 'Prometheus' in 4 Minutes or Less." That vid pretty much sums up my own disagreements with the movie. The biggest problem: total incoherence. The movie suggests that human life comes from an alien race that humans dub "The Engineers." Engineer DNA, it turns out, is an exact match for humans'. This fails to explain why chimpanzee DNA is a 96% or 97% match with homo sapiens'. Apparently, we're not part of the evolutionary continuum. In any case, the plot of "Prometheus" goes something like this: the crew of the Prometheus, around the year 2094, is led to a distant moon whose coordinates were transcribed as star patterns by ancient earthlings. Once the crew lands, the members explore a hollow, mountainous structure. They encounter mysterious, mutagenic ooze, along with several varieties of alien life, each of which seems to affect different crew members differently. No attempt is made to provide a taxonomy of these life forms, or to explain their varying effects on the crew, and David the android (it's an "Alien" movie, so of course there's an android, and of course he's going to have his head ripped off at some point) turns out to be a sneaky, murderous bastard for no clear reason. There's a subplot involving Peter Weyland, the tycoon funding the mission; Weyland has secreted himself on Prometheus so he can gain firsthand Engineer knowledge of how to prolong his life. Yeah, he ends up dead. Big surprise. Why the Engineers are over ten feet tall, have pale, translucent skin, yet are a 100% DNA match with humans is never explained. Why the ship's captain so readily accepts a sudden kamikaze mission at the end is also never explained. The philosophical and religious questions that the movie mentions are never dealt with in a serious way. A head explodes, and we never find out why. No one follows standard infection-control protocols. All in all, "Prometheus" is a towering pile of shit. And it isn't even scary: I laughed during all the scary moments. And now I want my two hours back.
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Tuesday, January 15, 2013
"Prometheus": a one-paragraph review
3 comments:
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I've only once before ever demanded my money back from a movie theater after wasting my time watching utter garbage. That masterpiece happened to be Sidney Poitier's "Ghost Dad."
ReplyDeleteAnd if I had seen this story-less debacle in the U.S. (by the creator of television's "Lost"), it would have been the second film that I would have had my money refunded for. Hell, just watching Idris Elba reading straight from the phone book would have been a massive improvement over this colossal misuse of acting talent.
Yeah, "Ghost Dad" was a piece of crap, too. I didn't realize that Poitier had directed it. Bill Cosby should've stuck to "I Spy" and standup comedy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it had its moments that were tense and a little freaky but it never fully got off the ground for me. However, it’s a beautiful film the whole way through and one that should definitely be seen in 3D no matter wherever you may be. Good review Kevin.
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