From the first moment that I learned that Ridley Scott was releasing a new sci-fi film, I was immediately excited by the prospect of being wowed by another brilliant film. The promo trailers that we have seen over the last few months for Prometheus looked promising so I was really looking forward to seeing the film for myself. Last night, David and I ventured out to see Prometheus and, I’m sorry to say, it was not a film that I could really love. Scott does an amazing job with the direction but the writing left MUCH to be desired. Prometheus was co-written by Lost creator Damon Lindelof and therein lies the problem.
Firstly, I really must stress that Prometheus is a beautiful film to watch. Ridley Scott‘s vision of the future is, as usual, really wonderful to behold … even the bad parts, Scott manages to make the fantasy world of the future look like art. BUT, a film is made up of more than just how it looks. From the start, the story and plot of Prometheus felt weak and it just kept getting worse as the film unfolded (and the film’s weaknesses had Lindelof written all over them). What really bothered me from the start was how poorly fleshed out the characters are. This film features a collection of SCIENTISTS who practice the absolute worst science ever. Upon landing on an alien planet, they just all decide to take their helmets off. Sure, why not. Then they start touching things that they have traveled billions of miles to study without any concern about how they might alter or destroy the artifacts they came to study. THEN when presented with a new snakelike life form, they decide to just reach out and touch it … pet it, as if it were a stray kitten. I mean, yes, this may sound petty but I could not for the life of me reconcile that we are to believe that any scientists would travel to the other side of the universe and then act like a bunch of idiots. If a film can’t impress me with such important details then how can I be expected to suspend belief about other things? The story overall is not really solid or cohesive. We are left to make huge extrapolations in an attempt to … well, I’m not sure what. This movie felt like it was trying to conjure up big, larger than life questions but, at least for me, it only served to dump a heaping pile of stuff on the screen and then end. There were things that I liked, particularly the allusions to other Ridley Scott films (if you know what I’m getting at) and I felt the last 30 seconds were the best part of the whole film. So while I did not love the film, I can’t say that I hated it either.
Here’s a note to file away, if you are ever running from a massive and round ship that is rolling toward you … don’t run IN FRONT OF IT because you could get smashed. Try running to the left or to the right and let it roll past you. I just wanted to put that out there.
Despite my disappointment, David and I did have fun last night:
Today, I have a few errands to do but it should be a pretty fun day. I hope YOU are having a great Saturday!
Sandro Botticelli
placement defiscalise
organic produce
Paul Klee
Jeanloup Sieff
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