[ChronoGrl]

Originally Posted by fortunato

I guess I'll post my review since no one else has:

I'll keep it short, given the many solid reviews up already. I tend more toward Ferret's review of the film. Beyond the visuals, which were absolutely brilliant and endlessly breathtaking, I was left feeling mostly underwhelmed. I thought the script was pretty weak. For a film dealing with the eternal vastness of space and the origins of humanity, it didn't feel very epic to me at all. The motivations behind the humans' mission and those of the space jockey and the arsenal of black goo all felt flat and thrown together.
That being said, between the visuals and effects and sets and acting, there was certainly enough to keep me engrossed for 2 hours. And I'll definitely go see the next one.

I'm going to be honest, I really agree with you and Ferret, though I would say that the issues I had with the movie unfortunately outweighed the pros for me.

Note: I had to dig up Ferret's well-written review - Here it is in case anyone hasn't read it yet and is interested.

The PROS for me (spoilers included, but thanks to V the warning's in the thread's title):

• Michael Fassbender/"David" - My favorite character, hands down. Absolutely creepy and brilliantly acted. I shuddered every time he was on screen.
• The sets - It's already been said, but the sets and direction were brilliant; definitely built off of the previous movies but didn't out-do them. I thought that the ship itself was fantastic (Ferret's observations are really spot-on).
• The self-abortion scene - Wow. WOW. One of the most disturbing scenes I've seen in horror as of late. Absolutely had me cringing. SO creepy.
• Engineer vs. Squid Baby - The fangirl in me absolutely delighted in this

The CONS/issues that I just couldn't really get my head out of:

• Why is no one absolutely amazed by the fact that they've discovered life AT ALL?! They land on a planet with incredible pyramid structures and it's all very ho-hum (weird reactions include Charlie the scientist being pissed and getting drunk - not really sure why there wasn't anything to celebrate here... Oh, and as noted, the surly geologist who is just "in it for the money" - I guess in the future space travel and discovery is really passe... Then what's the point of making a scifi movie about it?)
• The biologist and the geologist get stuck on an alien planet in a dust storm and NOBODY CARES?! "Oh, well, nothing we can do. Let's have sex..." Which leads me to...
• Idris Elba was incredibly wasted (hur hur literally and figuratively) and I ultimately had no feelings for him and his poorly two-dimensional copilots when they sacrificed themselves and the ship to save humanity.
• Michael Fassbender/"David" - Yep, listed as a con here because I feel as though his greatest moments were also really random... He poisons Charlie (Why? Because every son wants to see his father die and Charlie as a human is a surrogate "father" to androids? So why doesn't David poison or mess with everyone else?) I feel as though we're being lead down the path of the sentient android... Here we're in a world where we're trying to discover our makers and ultimately find out that our makers are out to destroy us (o, nihilism!), so is the point of him to turn the tables and destroy his own maker? I feel as though there was more here to uncover; he was such an interesting character, ultimately diminished to a laughable head in a dufflebag.
• I noted how incredible the self-abortion scene is... But then she's wandering around with her stomach stapled shut and no one bats an eye?? What about the two people she knocked out just to get to the self-surgery pod? Suddenly they're best friends? DOES NO ONE CARE THAT SHE JUST PULLED A SQUID CREATURE OUT OF HER BELLY?! DOES SHE EVEN CARE?! What a brilliant scene followed by incredible ambivalence... Made me wonder - What was the point of the scene at all?
• Weyland on Board - Ugh. So THIS is our payoff in terms of WHY they were flown there? REALLY?! Old rich dude wants to meet his maker? Sigh. Disappointing.
• Payoff #2 - Black Ooze and biochemical warfare - Another big disappointment; seems like we have black ooze on our hands that reconstructs an individual's DNA... If that's the case, then of course I'm wondering where do the xenomorphs come from (see, the black ooze seems to be pretty unpredictable when it comes to creation... yet there's a xenomorph on the wall in the black ooze canister room... And, yes, we get a xenomorph in the last 5 seconds - born of human, engineer, and squid creature... But it just seemed odd and random... OH BUT ISN'T LIFE ODD AND RANDOM?!)
• How heavily can we be hit on the head with the CREATION OF LIFE themes here? David wants to see his maker die... The Engineers want to destroy their progeny... I feel as though this is just Philosophy 101 being served up via University of Phoenix... BIG TOPICS with PRETTY PICTURES but ultimately nonsensical and disappointing when it comes to payoffs. Sure, you can make the argument that we are SUPPOSED to be left wondering - But if we are, why does this movie even exist? This movie is supposed to show us where we came from, right? It's not like Scott is particularly subtle when it comes to that. Also, the whole biochemical warfare coming back to bite you - sigh- been done (yes, common theme in the Alien franchise... but can we grow on this please??)
• Meredith Vickers - Theron did a great job with her, but I really didn't understand the point here - Big Business lady in space, I suppose? She didn't really turn out to be all that villainous (Weyland and David take that I suppose), but yet she deserves a villain's ending?
• SPACE JOCKEYS - I was promised Space Jockeys. I didn't go to see the great questions of Life, The Universe, and Everything be peddled about by pretty little things in spacesuits... WHERE ARE MY SPACE JOCKEYS?!
• Penis aliens - hur hur - Ok. Seriously. I canNOT be the only person who giggled at how incredibly phallic AND vaginal the black goo face huggers were... Though the breaking arm scene was pretty cringe-worthy. Also - WHY WOULD THE BIOLOGIST GET THAT CLOSE TO THEM?!

Argh. I was really disappointed and underwhelmed with this movie. Sure, it was pretty. Sure, more than a few scenes appealed to both my scifi fangirl AND horror fangirl sensibilities, but it seemed all really disjointed, no one seemed to react appropriately to anything at all, which made the best scenes seem like non sequitur. Ultimately, it all seemed very random, as though there were way too many areas of focus but none were fleshed out particularly well. Sure, one might say "Wait for the next movies," but UGH I feel as though I was promised a lot here and didn't get much out of it. Big empty pretty thing. I was actually pretty DISSATISFIED afterwards.

Anyway. That was a lot of rambling. For those of you who feel the same way, you may feel as amused and satisfied as I did when reading this review: http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddis...-epic-failure/

One of my favorite lines:

But, the humans aren’t the only dummies here. The aliens–who all resemble buffed, albino Woody Harrelsons–are just another version of the brutish, humanoid killing machines we see in garbage like this year’s Battleship. You would think that aliens who engineered human beings–and who have some unstated reason for wanting to wipe us out–would be smarter than the Xenomorphs from the Alien series. They aren‘t. Apart from having spaceships–and technology that conveniently shows pixilated holographic recordings of their fate to people who happen to drop in and push the right buttons–there is nothing advanced about them. They weren’t even smart enough to keep their deadly bio-weapons safely locked-up, choosing instead to keep them in jars on the floor. This is the equivalent of keeping buckets of poisonous snakes, viruses, and toxic waste in your family’s minivan. What advanced race would be that careless?

Some may argue that this is the point of the film–the cynical notion that all civilizations, on Earth and elsewhere, ultimately become warlike and self-destruct. Open up a history book and turn on the news, and I can see their point. I would suggest, though, that in the case of Prometheus, what’s responsible for the vacant barbarism of the aliens is merely the limited imaginations of their authors.