*/****
starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron
screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof
directed by Ridley Scott
by Walter Chaw It’s time, probably long past time, to admit that Ridley Scott is nothing more or less than Tim Burton: a visual stylist at the mercy of others to offer his hatful of pretty pictures something like depth. If either one of them ever made a great film (and I’d argue that both have), thank the accident of the right source material and/or editor, not these directors, whose allegiance is to their own visual auteurism rather than any desire for a unified product. For Scott, the conversation essentially begins and ends for me with Alien, Blade Runner, and Black Hawk Down (for most, it’s just the first two, with a political nod to Thelma & Louise)–genre films, all, and each about the complications of mendacity given over to lush, stylish excess: the gothic, biomechanical haunted house of Alien‘s Nostromo mining vehicle and its hapless band of blue-collar meatbags; the meticulously detailed Angelino diaspora of Blade Runner and its Raymond Chandler refugee; and Mark Bowden’s Mogadishu, transformed in Black Hawk Down into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Again, there’s that utility. Without it, Scott’s films are impenetrable monuments to style, as smooth and affectless as a perfume advertisement–and the more you watch them, the less memorable that style becomes.
It makes sense that well into his dotage Scott would return to Alien (next up, a Blade Runner sequel), seeking to recapture whatever lightning there was in that particular bottle, but, alas, key collaborators like screenwriter Dan O’Bannon and cinematographer Derek Vanlint are dead–and whatever O’Bannon’s replacement Damon Lindelof is, he’s also the idiot who wrote a few seasons of “Lost” before foisting Cowboys & Aliens on audiences that just didn’t deserve the punishment. Trusting Lindelof to shepherd an Alien prequel (no, it isn’t; yes, it is; no, it isn’t; okay, it sort of is) to fruition–to, more importantly, make something of Scott’s exhausted panache–is the kind of miscalculation that results in unique disasters like Prometheus. Make no mistake, it takes a lot of money, energy, and anticipation to make a movie this bad. Without anticipation, after all, without a bedrock legacy of one of the finest science-fiction films of all time, there couldn’t be this level of disappointment. Prometheus is a film as poorly written, as badly misconceived, as Episode 1–their greatest common thread is that they’re products of creators with terminal weaknesses exposed in the gaudiest way possible on the grandest stage imaginable. I should say, too, before we continue, that for all its bad thinking, bad writing, and bad acting, Prometheus is, worst of all, really, truly boring.
Prometheus is that conversation about God you get suckered into with some moron. Its arguments begin and end with “I believe, so should you” and proceed into “yes there is, no there isn’t,” and by the end, the accidental (I think) conclusion is that Faith is good, God is an impassive observer if He indeed exists, and the bad guy is, ready? Evolution. It seems that ancient hieroglyphs on Earth point to a constellation of stars around which there is one moon–you know the one–capable of supporting Life. This doesn’t explain why said moon, once our pilgrims arrive there, proves incapable of supporting life, but never mind, try to keep up. Prometheus at its heart is a 2001 knock-off, with its unearthing of ancient artifacts pointing to an invitation to exploration, its suggestion that human evolution is the product of alien intervention. But where 2001 correctly avoids trying to decipher the mind of a superior, alien intelligence (like a Christian god’s, n’est-ce pas?), Prometheus rails against the question in circular, puerile dialogue that not only stops the film repeatedly in its tracks but also supports the maxim that any film that namedrops God this much isn’t going to have anything to say. If Prometheus begins a question in your mind about Faith and the mysterium tremens, then I hate to be probably the eighth person to already tell you this today, but you’re a fucking idiot. Beginning as a ripper of 2001, Prometheus is by its end the gory remake no one wanted of 2010. We haven’t come full circle from Scott to Scott, but instead witnessed the devolution–and we’ve been watching it for decades–of Scott into Peter Hyams.
The archaeologists (or paleoanthropologists, or hikers, or art critics, the fuck knows/cares?) are Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her boyfriend/partner (the fuck knows/cares?) Charlie (Logan Marshall-Green). For what it’s worth, Marshall-Green is the spitting physical and spiritual image of Peter Facinelli, who played the same basic character with the same affliction in producer Walter Hill’s studio-mutilated Supernova. Could Prometheus be, in part, Hill’s underground attempt to cuckold his failed project on a director (Scott) who obviously doesn’t really care what the material is so long as he can graft his pictures onto it? There’s enough blame to go around. Shaw and Charlie, in the offscreen backstory we perhaps needed but are eventually grateful not to endure, get decrepit billionaire industrialist Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) to fund a space expedition to planet zero in search of God. God! Don’t you get it? Don’t you? It’s God! God! God! Okay, pay attention.
Along for the ride is a ragtag band of ruffian space pirates, including the ones who’re probably going to be dead first, geologist and ethnic colour Fifield (Sean Harris) and milquetoast biologist Millburn (Rafe Spall). I mention these guys because when they arrive on space moon delta, the geologist exhibits absolutely no interest in the indigenous geology and the biologist thinks it’s a great idea to fuck with a space cobra. Their lack of curiosity is a perfect reflection of the film’s own lack of subtlety and introspection. The reason Alien and Blade Runner work as larger conversations has everything to do with how deeply big questions are buried in its text; the first reason Prometheus fails is because, by bringing those Big Questions to the surface, it leaves giant empty graves in its text. (The second reason it fails is that no one in it ever behaves as though they could screw in a lightbulb.)
Mission android David (Michael Fassbender) watches Lawrence of Arabia on a loop, bleaches his hair, and is, from the start, the nefarious HAL 9000 programmed for no good. Why a robot modelling itself after the gay English Che Guevara is evil is up to you to decipher. Though we never get a fix on David as a sympathetic protagonist, it’s around to provide the “functional equivalence” portion of the picture’s nitwit thesis, the portion Alien and Blade Runner provide organically–the question being that at what point is there no real difference between man and his created things once those created things start thinking for themselves. From the get-go, David acts like a suspicious little twat, having its feelings hurt when Charlie acts like a jerk (and, by the way, if you don’t want to kill Charlie and Shaw yourself after a few minutes, you’re the android), spending a lot of its time acting like Peter O’Toole while soliloquizing to its finger, and generally doing everything Ian Holm resisted doing in 1979. If David can feel feelings, it brings up another Episode I complaint in that the technology in Prometheus is far, far superior to the technology of Alien. Consider the surgical iron-lung that can perform any desired procedure with its robot arms (although it can’t tell the difference between a male and a female). This technology also exists in a timeline where it’s apparently still possible for a woman to be infertile, which comes up, lamentably and without any real provocation, in a scene where Shaw–feminists, take note–gets hysterical only to be fucked into serenity by a genetically-altered Charlie. There, there, let me calm you with my penis. I mention all of this because there will come a moment where Shaw (and this is not much of a spoiler, but, hey, spoiler alert) becomes pregnant with something and climbs into the medi-pod to have it removed in the best girl-attacked-by-lasers scene since Michael York faced off against the plastic-surgery bot in Logan’s Run.
It’s a neat sequence if you ever wondered what a Caesarean section looks like, gonzo POV-style–even neater when you pause a moment to remember that the two crewmembers Shaw overcomes a few minutes earlier have, for no particular reason, stopped pursuing her for the length of time it takes her to endure the entire procedure. As far as stupid goes, Prometheus is an equal-opportunity offender. Throughout, Shaw talks about God and her faith–about how they’re out there in the middle of nowhere to “talk to” the things that, millennia previous, during the prologue, “seeded” the oceans of the Earth with their own DNA for their own obscure purposes. When it turns out they’re dead, their fate revealed obliquely in a ridiculous holographic effect (and fans of Alien, take note that these alien progenitors are the same species as the “space jockey” the Nostromo’s crew discovers in the first film), Charlie whines about how he really wanted to chat with them, which is probably not what whatever his kind of scientist is is likely to whine.
Anyway, Shaw takes a mummified alien head off the alien bunker and sort of reanimates it long enough for it to explode, raising the obvious question of what it is that our heroes have found on galactic rock 222002. Well, it’s a weapon, stupid–a head-popping one. It’s probably a biological one as well, because it’s black goop stored in metal canisters, and the way it works is that a scientist or some other imbecile fucks around with it until it explodes in their eyes and, um, evolves them or impregnates them or kills them or does something that triggers a lot of 3-D special effects. You’re in trouble when a viral YouTube video of a hillbilly killing himself by doing something stupid to an animal is your central plot point.
Did I mention ice princess Vickers (Charlize Theron) and irie Capt. Janek (Idris Elba)? No? Never mind. Ignore, too, the senseless bromance at the end involving a couple of other negligible and fast-forgotten characters. At any rate, Weyland and his agent, David, want to collect samples of the weapon, because that’s what they always want to do in this series of movies, either by bringing back one of the canisters or, even better (how could this go wrong?), by impregnating the girl hero–because, in this iteration, one of David’s special android powers is knowing when Charlie is going to want to fuck his slow-thinking Swedish girlfriend. But wait: In addition to stealing their how-could-they-have-known-about-it goop, they also want to talk to the alien primogenitors, because…um…God. It’s God! God! At the end (but not at the end enough), David asks Shaw if, despite the shit that went down, she still believes, and Shaw affirms that she does while clarifying that the reason she does and David doesn’t is because David isn’t a human being. Slam! Oh no she di’nt!
The essence of humanity, see, is apparently its unflagging ability and innate desire to Believe in a Sky Wizard and His Zombie Son, thus setting us apart from toasters and gibbons and Muslims and stuff that doesn’t believe in all that. Prometheus also sets up the sequel where Shaw and her Basket Case sidekick confront the alien primogenitors with more and bigger questions about God and Creation and why our GOD would want to create something He would subsequently want to destroy. The last line of the film, which I’ll resist spoiling for you, is the hoariest, most irritating last line in the storied and monstrously unimaginative history of such things. In voiceover, even! Let’s leave it with Faith is good; God isn’t talking; and Evolution is a biological weapon that is an affront to God. Promethean fire in the Alien franchise, if you want to make a fine point of it, is the crucible in which we burn and the explosions from within–the visual representation of the devouring of our demigod’s liver in a lonesome crag of the Caucasus. So, does this mean that only the most mindless and unquestioning of the devout will enjoy Prometheus? That Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” was a predictor of the audience for this piece of crap? That’s between you and your god.
Aw, crap.
God didn’t like the ending of “Lost” either.
Chaw’s rants against Christianity are playing to diminishing returns in his reviews. This was too long, purposefully full spoilers/details and written by a guy who’s so pissed off about the way of things. His crankiness is trampling on his skill as a critic.
You’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an asshole.
Drat!
What’s that leave, BRAVE and BATMAN’S RISING TUMESCENCE vs STEELY DAN??
At least ALIEN is still the best movie ever made.
Walter speaks the truth. Praise him.
Prometheus is an Alien abortion delivered full-term but stillborn. It’s Star Trek V with a bigger budget and less entertainment.
Hmmm, Roger Ebert’s review is also spoiler-heavy but he’s not actually trying to warn you away from seeing the film. Don’t think spoilers a re really a problem in an overwhelmingly negative review….
One more film about the inherent goodness of faith? Reeeaaallyyy? America continues to be the number 1 exporter of banality, I see. Cheers for saving me the price of admission, Mr. Chaw, keep up the great work.
One more film about the inherent goodness of faith? Reeeaaallyyy? America continues to be the number 1 exporter of banality, I see. Cheers for saving me the price of admission, Mr. Chaw, keep up the great work.
I always arrive at reading a Walter Chaw with my eyeballs peering through my fingers. And, man, you didn’t disappoint here. Thanks for always keeping it real, Walter. I have rarely disagreed with your criticisms (just minor quibbles 😉 ) You are one of the very few (you mostly) critics I read for the meaning (obvious and subtextual) and cultural relevance of a movie. I am going to see Prometheus tomorrow, because I do like looking at shiny objects sometimes. lol 🙂
I get the sense Ebert may have been overwhelmed by the aesthetics and given grace to everything else.
That said Walter, you seem more and more intent on validating your existence every review. Something like half of the scientific community sees the theory of evolution (perhaps minus its uber-naturalistic varieties) as perfectly compatible with belief in God, even “his zombie son.” That’s good empirical evidence that the two are not mutually exclusive.
I agree that Prometheus is the equivalent of a middle school summer camp conversation. And I appreciate that you loved Tree of Life even if you read some of your own personal belief system into it. That was one of the only films I’ve seen that addressed theological issues in a way that actually reflects real-life experience, ie “there doesn’t seem to be anything happening and yet life has to be more than this, etc.”
Keep living.
You’re the only one with a fixation on the God question. Prometheus naturally skimmed over it relatively untouched, considering the subject matter.
Also, your analysis of a typical conversation about god is actually a better description of your review. You’ve interpreted the film in one way, not considered that the questions were left open to multiple theories that the audience can decide and then thrown up a rant on here as if your idea of what the plot was doing is the only one.
I never seen a review that so misses the point, and gets so side-tracked, as to completely avoid reviewing the actual content of the film.
I know this is a mistake and I probably won’t make it again: but here’s the dealio – I got no problem with my writing being personal. I have more of a problem when my writing is perceived as impersonal. Yes, I justify my existence and cement my piece of immortality by writing. It’s for me. Ozymandian, I know. The first criticism of criticism I don’t understand is the charge that it’s biased. Well… no shit.
Then there’s all this stuff all the time about spoilers… spoilers. If you don’t want a spoiler, look at the star review and move along. That’s the consumer reporting portion of the proceedings – when I read someone’s opinion of something, I’m expecting them to talk about the text. If your expectations are different – you’re in the wrong place.
And last – it’s a little galling, I think – and largely due to the fact that “big” pictures attract new readers – to have to constantly feel this tug to re-position on stupid arguments. I don’t hate Christians, I hate idiots. I know that evolution is compatible with many Christians; I’ve had this conversation with my buddy who’s a great Christian and a great doctor, too. I’ve never successfully, however, gotten him to justify to me the overt cannibalism involved in his ritual belief system. Of course, he doesn’t have to justify anything to me. I believe that no one has ever risen from the grave after three days in it – for a lot of you, that makes me crazy, lost, and doomed to an eternity burning in hell.
Just like a review ago, I know that Snow White 3000! isn’t feminist in any way – but I also know that it thinks it is. Similarly, I know that Prometheus isn’t about anything, but if we go back with a clicker, I’d wager that a good 25% of its dialogue is about God. If any conversation is 1/4 about God, it’s a religious conversation. Prometheus isn’t about God, I totally agree, but it sure thinks that it is.
Look, I like Roger Ebert – I like him a great deal personally – and I think that anyone that’s been through what he’s been through will look at any film that fucks around this much with ultimate questions will appeal to him.
Is that everything?
Let me just say, too, that I’ll fully own being an asshole – if you fully own that Prometheus is a piece of shit that’s requiring altogether too much apologizing and equivocation from people that won’t figure out that it’s a piece of shit for about a year. I remember a lot of the same comments in defense of our review of Episode II.
I don’t hear a lot of defenses of Episode II anymore.
Once again Walt stabs fanboys and thumpers right in their raisinettes and leaves them wriggling like a mackerel on the end of his poison pen.
A very funny piece of writing that correctly notes the weaknesses in the screenplay, story structure and many characters. And yet for all Walter’s well written witicisms, the film is not bad at all. Okay, so the theology does not work for Walter Chaw, that’s okay, I found it a little childish, but in suspending disbelief just a little more, I managed to enjoy what was on offer, that did look good, that did flow seamlessly. It is not the ataggering disaster it is described as here, nor is it anywhere near as ludicrous, shallow and horrible as Parts 1, 2 or 3. Perhaps Walter was angry because the film was not what he wanted/expected? And so he took it out in a scathing review. I suspect that time will temper his mood and I hope we get a re-review one day then I am sure we will get a funny review, but more accurate and less angry.
Favorite word in the review: “Cuckold.” This dude is either the Lord of Self-Depricating Satire, or a douche. (Imagine a Phil Hartman voiceover, “That’s OK – the box is empty!”) Seriously though, I liked the review. Probably will like the movie too. Dear Ridley Scott: continue rubbing your tired prick against Hollywood’s sandpaper loins.
3 starts for Madagascar 3 and 1 for Promotheus? wtf???
Sounds like a navel-gazing misfire, childishly spelled out for the audience, like most prequels. Based on what Walter wrote, I get the Episode 1 comparison. I expect the same from the Blade Runner prequel, you know, to answer all the open-ended questions in the original which is what made it interesting? The main question is: does it take anything away from the good Alien film? Because I just can’t with the SW prequels. Tarnished. Same for Tron (which I know Walter thinks is dumb fluff, but which I think is The Robe for the Computer Age).
“Let me just say, too, that I’ll fully own being an asshole – if you fully own that Prometheus is a piece of shit that’s requiring altogether too much apologizing and equivocation from people that won’t figure out that it’s a piece of shit for about a year.”
I have no interest in defending “Prometheus,” which I did not like all that much. But, believe it or not, it is possible to dislike this movie — even hate this movie, even give it a thorough and complete bashing — without being such a fucking asshole, you fucking asshole.
“If Prometheus begins a question in your mind about Faith and the mysterium tremens, then I hate to be probably the eighth person to already tell you this today, but you’re a fucking idiot.”
What a thoughtful and insightful piece of commentary. Go eat a dick.
This is what makes you such a frustrating writer, Walter — you have such high standards and a clear desire to raise the discourse, yet you always seem to end up lowering it instead.
The review addresses the lack of internal logic, the shallow to near nonexistent characterization, the propagandizing of “Intelligent Design”, and the spiffy visuals (it’s only real selling point).
As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Chaw is correct on all counts.
Very good point about the producer of
Supernova and the transplant character of Charlie Holloway. Maybe Ridley Scott had to make concessions to hire Lindelof to write the script. It’s outside personal vendettas that screw up a phenomenal work. They keep pushing the same idiotic ideas and characters from other failed movies and try to force them to work in a project they have no business being in to the detriment of a highly anticipated sci-fi film phenomena. Lucas did the same. He tried to force reality to accept childish Ewoks did not ruin the SW trilogy by making Ep I a childish movie and sticking to choice childish dopey looking production designs and characters in Ep II and III all to get back at Gen X audience comments and disappointment. I recall the surprise screening of ST2009, the one with Nimoy on stage, and saw some bald head bespectacled guy singing the TOS theme in a disrespectful way and now realize that jerk was Lindelof. Why hire writers who subconsciously at their core want to diss classic sci-fi franchises and old fans.
Very good point about the producer of
Supernova and the transplant character of Charlie Holloway. Maybe Ridley Scott had to make concessions to hire Lindelof to write the script. It’s outside personal vendettas that screw up a phenomenal work. They keep pushing the same idiotic ideas and characters from other failed movies and try to force them to work in a project they have no business being in to the detriment of a highly anticipated sci-fi film phenomena. Lucas did the same. He tried to force reality to accept childish Ewoks did not ruin the SW trilogy by making Ep I a childish movie and sticking to choice childish dopey looking production designs and characters in Ep II and III all to get back at Gen X audience comments and disappointment. I recall the surprise screening of ST2009, the one with Nimoy on stage, and saw some bald head bespectacled guy singing the TOS theme in a disrespectful way and now realize that jerk was Lindelof. Why hire writers who subconsciously at their core want to diss classic sci-fi franchises and old fans.
Very good point about the producer of
Supernova and the transplant character of Charlie Holloway. Maybe Ridley Scott had to make concessions to hire Lindelof to write the script. It’s outside personal vendettas that screw up a phenomenal work. They keep pushing the same idiotic ideas and characters from other failed movies and try to force them to work in a project they have no business being in to the detriment of a highly anticipated sci-fi film phenomena. Lucas did the same. He tried to force reality to accept childish Ewoks did not ruin the SW trilogy by making Ep I a childish movie and sticking to choice childish dopey looking production designs and characters in Ep II and III all to get back at Gen X audience comments and disappointment. I recall the surprise screening of ST2009, the one with Nimoy on stage, and saw some bald head bespectacled guy singing the TOS theme in a disrespectful way and now realize that jerk was Lindelof. Why hire writers who subconsciously at their core want to diss classic sci-fi franchises and old fans.
I’m confused about Blade Runner and Alien being silent Kubrickian masterpieces?Prometheus is a stones throw away from both of those films in style, dialogue, and narrative discourse. Of course both of those films(2001 too) were met with middling critical praise as well.
Some of you really need to get some perspective. This is a movie produced by hollywood. Get over it. It’s not a literary treatise on the human condition. If you want good science fiction then you need to read books or see small budget films which left US audiences confused and didn’t make hundreds of millions of dollars for their right-wing conservative paymasters. Ridley Scott does depressing futuristic nihilism – he once did it well. But now doom is just cliche. How can you write so much about this film?!?! There’s very little to say about good stories and so much isn’t being said about how crap hollywood scripts are!!!
This is brilliant! Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou… I’ve had to sit through so many people in the past few days explaining to me how “deep” and “non Hollywood” this film is, I wanted to puke. I needed this review. I will be back to read more…
Fine review. However, I don’t think it does justice to the depth this ‘film’ has fallen to. You see, it’s not just a question of bad screenwriting. On the contrary, this screenplay is perfect – from the perspective of what it really intends to do. You see, Prometheus is not intended to be a proper film, in terms of there being an intention to tell a story. Prometheus is a non-story. It is a disjointed sequence of events designed to confuse the audience and pose a million questions so that fans can watch several sequels and special editions, buy video games, comics, novels, and discuss these stupid questions and apparent plot holes on discussion boards.
The film is not intended to be a story that begins and ends in the cinema. It is just a huge teaser trailer whose life begins OUTSIDE cinema. Instead of telling a story, the film just throws out a million questions and cues so that fans can imagine their own stories based on that. It is a trend that started with The Matrix and its confused world that only made sense to devoted fans who did detective work on the Internet in order to try and make sense of the ‘plot’.
The bottom line is that this film isn’t just bad, it is a project that delibeerately and cynically distances itself from everything cinema is supposed to be. It is anti-cinema.
Walter, I appreciate the fact that you responded to all of our comments.
Is your friend a Catholic? Outside of some Orthodox circles, not too many other subsets emphasize the actual consuming of Christ’s flesh and blood in the eucharist, which does sound vaguely cannibalistic, if not for the whole “divine mystery” part.
That said, I think 1st century Jewish Christians were more likely celebrating Passover and/or sharing actual meals (rather than performing a rite of some kind) and seeing the presence of the resurrected Jesus in the communal aspect. Meals were very sacred things, especially to Hebraic communities.
There are lots and lots of scholarly interpretations of just about everything, which means I don’t believe you are crazy, lost, or going to burn for eternity. That has been in the history of the Church’s teaching, but doesn’t seem to be the primary focus of the 1st Century writers.
I think there are perfectly good reasons to believe in the Resurrection (and frankly, why be a Christian if I don’t?), but I think there are perfectly good reasons to not believe in it, ie “people tend to not rise from the dead after three days.”
But I do think you’re more sophisticated and intelligent than “his zombie son.” That sounds like a 20-something angry basement atheist, not Walter Chaw.
But, yeah, Prometheus is as deep as 6th grade sleepover’s 2AM discussion.
On a whim I skipped the midnight show. Your review makes me glad I did and made me laugh too. Nicely, written.
The film indeed did have a few flaws. However, after reading this review, perhaps the biggest unanswered question is how Walter Chaw managed to find the time to produce such a lengthy review despite his protracted obsession with furiously masturbating to his self-portrait. Will we ever find the answer?
I really do want to respond to this in an intelligent way, but I’m close to being blinded by rage at any comparison of what is truly a good film (sure it does has it’s problems,) to Episode 1.
As for minor logic lapses:
1. While I questioned the technology being more advanced than in Alien, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to believe that a ship built to carry the head of the Weyland corporation itself would be of superior build to the towing vessel Nostromo.
2. Our scientists that are killed off first- so what if he doesn’t care about rocks, his character seems more interested in making a show and then later surviving. And if I were his biologist friend, I would want to closely examine a discovery as well, unfortunate results aside.
3. The med pod is simply not calibrated for feminine-specific surgeries, and never says it wouldn’t accept a female subject. I really don’t see how this is a problem.
4. As for inhabitability of the setting, the planet they landed on was in a sustainable zone in its system. They wouldn’t have any idea that the air itself wasn’t breathable until they touched down on the planet.
5. While Davids motivations regarding Charlie were questionable, it’s simple to interpret that he was maliciously curious. And of course he didn’t know Charlie was going back to seduce his girlfriend-he never made any hints that his intention was to somehow impregnate Shaw. How would he even have known that this was a possibility?
And most people’s biggest gripe is that while Prometheus leaves more questions than answers, shouldn’t an intelligent audience anticipate this as the point. After all, didn’t Douglas Adams teach us that the question is more important than the answer anyway?
Finally: I can respect your need to find flaws- I have this trait myself, but I have learned that I usually pounce on the material that I, MYSELF don’t like. A person in your position’s job is to help people to decide whether or not to see a film, not shoot it down out of personal opinions. I can also respect that you hold no gripes with Christians, only Idiots. As a Christian myself, I am surprised how often those two overlap. However, if by “overt cannibalism,” you are referring to Eucharist, I would encourage you to do more research. Lastly, I can respect your work as a writer, but calling Prometheus a piece of shit, and comparing to the washed up works of Burton, or any of Lucas’ more recent creations I have been subjected to seems a little excessive. Perhaps even focussed on bending fanboys out of shape.
-Bent out of shape fanboy.
“A person in your position’s job is to help people to decide whether or not to see a film, not shoot it down out of personal opinions.”
No.
First time at the sime – Great review – and dead on – will come back again. Saw Prometheus earlier today and wished I hadn’t. But should have known better when Lindelof was involved.
SPOILER ALET
What about the big evil bad guy realizing at the end that “There is nothing” to which David replies “I know”. It’s like every character insists on asking “What the meaning of it all is” without considering that maybe that’s a dumb question to even ask. This exchange might be fantastic in another movie, and Prometheus it kind of brings to life those final 30 minutes, but ultimately doesn’t.
Prometheus is to Alien as Avatar is to Aliens.
Great directors, past their prime, working with subpar scripts, hoping audiences will be so dazzled by the 3D CGI visuals that they won’t notice that the rest of the movie is a shined-up turd.
Prometheus does suck, but your tiresome attack on one specific religion itself rather than this hamhanded ode to it written by people probably just as hostile in their atheism as you are really just makes you look like a bitter jackoff. And awwwww, you got a snide little defense of Islam in, even though you must think it’s stupid too … coward points!
You know what’s really funny, Mr. Chaw? The fact that you watched the whole movie and, quite rightly, decided it’s terrible … yet completely missed its childish and idiotic point.
The movie was not ‘about God’. The movie was about man’s origins as a strict scientific pursuit. Nobody was looking for a mystical creature (ala Star Trek V). There was no attempt to find a ‘heaven’ or a first mover. They went into space looking for mortal beings that ‘fathered’ our species. The reason you can’t tell is because you’re a member of that tired, pervasive modern group of people who reject religion thinking that doing so automatically rids you of all the problems associated with ideology, not realizing that scientism is the new religion.
The true ham-handed, overarching theme was one that permeates most crap Hollywood movies: daddy issues. The Abercrombie and Fitch model who was supposed to be a scientist actually voiced this idiocy (needlessly, much like when Charlize Theron has to actually call the guy ‘father’ or say ‘he cut me off’ after a big, awkward pause – you have to make sure you drive those obvious points home). He said repeatedly “Why did they abandon us?!?”, like a kid whose dad left him. And when he went to find daddy and daddy was dead, he got drunk and cried about it.
The only ham-handed religious stuff is the cross, which was terrible (how thoughtful of the android to carry that ‘potentiall contaminated’ cross around with him!) but it was by no means the focus of the story; it was one awfully-writen character’s awful method of expressing the awfully-written and tired central theme: a search for meaning and belonging.
Walter, thanks for this review. If anything I think you weren’t harsh enough. This film is grindingly awful. It really is about as good/bad as Supernova (although in truth it’s even more inane than that.)
Hollywood circa 2012 is simply too stupid and too obsessed with never offending even the dumbest members of its potential audience to ever make a worthwhile science fiction film. They should quit trying.
I saw the movie yesterday and this review is spot on!! It truly stinks and a waste of money. I hope it flops big time!!
I love how the army of Ridley apologists point to the anticipation factor as being complicit for negative reviews for this indecipherable trainwreck. The truth is it takes a lot of special qualities to be able to turn a film w/ this cast, this director’s eye, this budget and this sci-fi brand into Phantom Menace (filtered through the lens of Michael Bay, but minus the ‘gratification’ part of the ‘instant gratification’ equation.) To be clear, this is a terrible movie, and it had ridiculous hype, but these two things are mutually exclusive. Walter, your review, in addition to being 100% dead on, is the most entertaining and satiating thing about this movie.
Walter has a strange obsession with the things he hates that a lot of people like (Inception, Joss Whedon… God, apparently…). Most of his reviews in regards to these things tend to become about those people and his contempt for them rather than the property itself, and you can tell how angry they make him because he tends to abandon journalistic integrity in order to make a point. I’m not saying that Joss Whedon hates women, but a nerd transformed into the Hulk and attacked Scarlett Johansson. Just saying.
I guess I’m not all that unlike Walter in the sense that his strange band of acolytes bother me infinitely more than the actual man. Take a look at some of the comments tagged to this review.
“Once again Walt stabs fanboys and thumpers right in their raisinettes [sic] and leaves them wriggling like a mackerel on the end of his poison pen.”
You know, his good buddy Walt? They have nicknames because they’re tight like that. These aren’t people looking for probing, intelligent discourse about the state of cinema. These are sneering hipsters who think that liking Synecdoche New York makes them interesting at parties. And I think part of the reason his writing has gotten progressively nastier is because he realizes the cultish devotees who are drawn to his particular brand of iconoclasm are the same people who get their rocks off when they see less sophisticated popcorn munchers than themselves quickly dispatched as “fucking idiots.” It’s not even about the movie anymore.
“…people who reject religion thinking that doing so automatically rids [themselves] of all the problems associated with ideology, not realizing that scientism is the new religion.” This Whaw is and always will be scatological rumination nonesense. One can ALWAYS challenge science with SCIENCE, and there is zero to no science in religion, period.
Awesome, hilarious review. I can’t disagree with most of it even though I enjoyed the movie. I am the ultimate ALIEN-sequel apologist, though the scene where the biologist and the geologist act like fucking idiots and get killed as a result is really bad. And Charlie just sucks.
I would argue, however, that the movie is a little more sly than you’re giving it credit for. In Weyland’s final moments, he utters something which I found telling of the film’s overall perspective — that the talk of “God,” at least in this context, is a lot of nonsense, and by the end I think Shaw’s idea of what God is has changed. It’s far from revelatory, but hey, at least it didn’t piss me off.
Seeing a lot of idiot nerds who don’t know a good movie from shit like Transformers. Just go back to watching Transformers!
Walter, I agree with most of your review, but I would make the point that Michael Fassbender’s David requires some recognition as the Embodiment of Technology. It’s a hamfisted way of delivering the message that using technological advances to a) seek immortality or b) discern a higher purpose just leads to getting people killed. But recognizing this, I think, makes the ending of the movie a bit more subversive. It doesn’t save the movie, but I think does make it a bit more coherent.
Perhaps I’m giving the screenwriter too much credit. What do you think?
Alas–in a way deep down somewhere we all knew this would be true about Prometheus. It would be good in its own way (it is Ridley Scott returning to the Alien universe/genre he created), however it is not the Alien prequel or anything ‘really related’ to the Alien story we all hoped for.
Originally, the first working draft of the Prometheus script before it was presented to one of the previous writers(David Lindelof)of the Lost TV series, was in fact more a true prequel tie-in to Ridley Scott’s original Alien, complete with eggs, chestbusters, etc… This was the movie all of us were more or less hoping for. David felt (along with his co-writer Jon Spaihts of course–there were two writers of the Prometheus script we’re seeing today)and took his feelings/convictions to Ridley Scott, that they should steer away from the Alien story altogether, not touching it, and instead let Prometheus be in the same “universe as Alien” but essientially tell another story all together and do its own thing leaving the Alien mythology well enough alone. After listening to Mr. Lindelof and Jon Spaihts, Ridley Scott then decided/or was convinced that this new direction for Prometheus was the way to go, and thus long and short of it, that’s why we didn’t get the Alien tie-in prequel everyone was hoping for or having such high expectations for.
Truth be told, I think everyone was feeling the pressure of “delivering the goods” so to speak with this movie when it was in the pre-production phase. Alien is one of the few films that Ridley Scott has left relatively untouched/unchanged all these years except for a very few minor things(which didnt change anything about the film) in his directors cut release, and for good reason. Could he match that again with the Prometheus prequel? Would it mess up or have the potential of messing up what he did with the original Alien? Everyone’s expectations for Ridely Scott’s Alien prequel would be sky rocketed to the heavens. I think Ridely was feeling all of that pressure to deliver, and I can guarantee you that two writers trying to tackle this monster of responsibilty script re-write were feeling the “weight of the world on their shoulders”. Nothing they came up with probably seemed good enough, or done do death. How could you do something that lived up to the original Alien/etc….? So realistically, what happens? The two writers maybe stress out, get scared a little maybe, back away a little from that daunting of a task and try to hide that running away by trying to tell another ‘daunting and complicated story to distract us from the fact that they shrunk away from the Alien tie-in prequel story we all wanted–why? Because honestly, know one knew how to tell the story. In the end they got cold feet and decided to go another way with it.
Can you really blame them? I can at least understand. I, as a Alien fan, would be really upset and disappointed if Ridley Scott had released a true Alien tie-in prequel that was subpar and truely a flop. At least this gives him some breathing room and still leaves the door open to eventually come back (maybe/hopefully) one day and give us all the true Alien tie-in prequel we have all been waiting to see for so long by Mr. Ridley Scott. No other person has any other business bringing that story back to life at this point from a prequel perspective. Ridley Scott can still breathe live back into and actually give it a new life not just a ressurection with it still being Alien and not just an Alien spin off in the same universe. Ridley Scott enjoys a challenge, he always has. He is an innovative film maker and one of the best at what he does. I don’t think he should back down from this because he’s afraid of messing it up. It will be difficult, and Ridley knows that. But he also knows he can do it. It will just take a long time and a hell of a lot of work and effort. The question is, is Ridley Scott ready and willing to put in that kind of work right now into Alien(because with Prometheus he was just flirting with Alien again). Is he truely ready to revisit Alien again. That’s just truly up to him as a director and what he wants to do artisticly and professionally right now with his time/life. Hopefully, for all the Alien fans out there, he will. But alas, its entirely in Mr. Scott’s control. Isn’t waiting frustrating?
PROMETHEUS is more KNOWING or EPISODE 1 than ALIEN or 2001. I don’t exactly mean that as pejorative. I actually like KNOWING and EPISODE 1. Some arresting images and/or good performances, along with an overall sincerity and meshugganas (sic?) is enough to sustain me. I think it’s enough to make the experience worthwhile. The film is kitsch, but I really don’t think that you can address the God question without lapsing into kitsch. It’s ridiculous, Man in the Sky and zombie son and everything. But believing in the ridiculous may be preferable to confronting the abject terror of a universe where there are no consequences for our actions (except those irregularly applied by society) and where life has no intrinsic value or meaning aside from that which we construct ourselves. To the degree that I admire PROMETHEUS, I think it’s because it’s frankly a little tacky and that tackiness has it’s own kind of truth.
Aside: not commented on enough that the film basically follows the same plotline as the first ALIEN film. Kind of didn’t payoff that promise of being a prequel set in the same universe. Also, EPISODE 1 connection, it makes explicit what we could have reasonably surmised from the first film about the nature of the Space Jockeys and the xenomorphs. If anything, the film has been masterfully marketed. For such a questionable product, it has fostered a very deep emotional response among fans and audiences.
If you’re going to bash a movie, at least bash it for things that are accurate. You make a number of flat out incorrect points.
Imagine the agony of receiving a concrete enema…then waiting for it set. That’s what reading a Chaw review feels like.
Walter, thank you for this completely accurate review. I also agree with other commenters that it somehow doesn’t go far enough. It is utterly depressing that anyone is defending this movie on any level. To defend this movie is to hate movies as movies. It is so sad that fandom will not stick up for itself and insists on excusing this dreck, they would get better films overall if they kicked this stuff to the curb.
Emil, you are also great for pointing out that this is anti-cinema. Completely true and deserving of an essay in its own right.
Not only that, but it is anti-cinematic. People gushing about the eye-popping visuals and somehow thinking that his exonerates the film are sadly misled. Anyone who allowed Guy Pearce’s old-man makeup to make it past the screen-test must have their “visual genius” bona-fides revoked. Not only that, but there really wasn’t anything terribly memorable, innovative or interesting about the production-design work. More shiny space-stuff. R2’s Leia hologram inspired more fascination and curiosity in audiences than all the hologram work in this Prometheus no matter how screen devouring and 3D it got. The medlab was memorable, but as Walter says, made ridiculous by an unnecessary contrivance. The cartography balls were fun. I’ll give him that.
It is worth considering that the early shots of David simply walking through the corridors and riding the bike are the only genuinely cinematic moments of the entire show.
What a complete piece of crap!!!!!
Phenomenal review, but I had a severely different reaction:
http://themoviefreakblog.com/review-prometheus
Saw it yesterday-trust me, Walter’s review makes perfect sense if you’ve seen the film, which is hardly an endorsement of it. Apparently edited in a blender and demanding not only suspension of disbelief but suspension of logical faculties…
Enjoyed the movie. Wasn’t expecting it to be another Alien, like some of these commenters. Glad it wasn’t. If you were hopin’ for that, then you should ask the Crap brothers that shitted out AvP:Requiem to write and direct and you would have had a piece of crap.
Liked the little ties into the origin of the alien creature and it’s potential to become what eventually the crew of the Nostromo encounters. Like how the moon they landed on was not LV-426, which leaves open the possibilities of the ship that the crew of the Nostromo found. Liked the potential evolving relationship of Shaw and the beheaded David.
In some ways it is visually stunning and in other ways, Ridley gives in more to money rather than art, but still fun.
Really boring movie. Another “Hugo”, if you will. People want to be entertained when they go see a movie–on this point alone Prometheus fails miserably.
The worst part of this movie is that the story is so stupid and riddled with plotholes that it insults your intelligence and just kills your suspension of disbelief.
Ridley Scott hasn’t made a good movie since Black Hawk Down. I think part of the problem is that he has not chosen good scripts lately. Visually, Ridley Scott is a genius but movie audiences want a story and characters they can relate to–Prometheus is such a huge disappointment in this respect. Nice visuals but no heart. Prometheus never connects with the audience at any point, and this is a real problem. Even the corny Dances with Smurfs by James Cameron was miles better than Prometheus because audiences could relate to some aspects of the story and characters.
Honestly, since 1986’s Aliens, there hasn’t been a truly great sci-fi movie. Aliens just hit all the right buttons–great characters, solid plot, great suspense and thrills, and great action. Who can forget Ripley in mum mode kicking the alien queen’s ass? It just connects instantly with audiences–there was no need for tons of meaningless semi-mysterious dialogue like in Prometheus. Everyone understands how ferocious a mum can get when defending her child, people get this instantly. There is nothing like this in Prometheus, just emotionless dialogue and characters doing stupid irrational things.
Wish that movie directors in general would study Aliens and get back to basics. Seriously folks, this is not rocket science–people just want to be entertained. If you’re going to spend hundreds of millions on a movie, (1)don’t insult the audience’s intelligence and (2)make sure the movie is entertaining. Look at Avengers 2012, not a classic by any means but entertaining and it cleaned out at the box-office.
Heck, even The Artist 2011 was way more entertaining and thought-provoking than Prometheus–and it was made on a $15 million budget in black and white! If Blade Runner 2 is going to be more drivel like Prometheus, seriously Scott–don’t bother.
The best science fiction movie in the past 3 years remains District 9–made on a small budget yet was superbly entertaining and thought-provoking. Even “Moon” by Duncan Jones (another sci-fi movie made on a small budget) kicks Prometheus’ ass bigtime.
I personally loved the movie! I’m a huge fan of the Alien franchise, went in with no expectations but to see what R. Scott’s take was on this prequel. I thought it was rather good. I think most people, including this critic, had great specific expectations about this movie and thus were disillusioned, feeling robbed in the process. Mr. Scott, job well done, you are still a talented genius, don’t mind the haters.
“This Whaw is and always will be scatological rumination nonesense. One can ALWAYS challenge science with SCIENCE, and there is zero to no science in religion”
Yes, you just defined scientism. Now, what is your point?
The point Whaw is religion is NOT science, never will be (and “intelligent design” certainly isn’t science.) Therefore, science cannot be a religion. Science requires the rigors of the scientific method. It’s not just a culture belief system. You can use the pejorative if you want, that’s your belief. The quest for God is futile, there is no proof. I do understand spirituality is a probable requirement of our human intellect, but a God head, the Creator, the overseer of all things is fiction. Are there other REAL life forms somewhere out there in the universe other than Earth? Probability tells me yes, not the Bible (and as far as I know, no other religious text either.)
this review is amazing. i dont think ive seen a worse movie in my entire life. so much stupidity packed into 2 hours.
Is it just me or was the musical score a letdown as well? Forgetable.
“These aren’t people looking for probing, intelligent discourse about the state of cinema. These are sneering hipsters who think that liking Synecdoche New York makes them interesting at parties.”
Would much prefer to chat with those sneering hipsters than somebody trying to corner me in a conversation about Prometheus.
I’m pretty sure you don’t have to worry about either of those things happening.
Wot no mention of The Duellists?
Bryan Gatwood:
I found the score interesting enough (if underdeveloped thematically); it just didn’t seem to fit the images that it was supposed to be connecting with.
However, I was also disappointed with the film overall (as so many others were).
PROMETHEUS struck me as the mid=point between a remake of Mario Bava’s PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES and a half-hearted adaption of Lovecraft’s AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. Ridley Scott has always been a high-budget Bava, committed to atmosphere and pictorialism to the occasional detriment of plot and sense, but I’m not sure Bava ever made a film this diffuse. ALIEN was minimal and suggestive; this one is just vague.
The effects and design in PROMETHEUS are pretty enough that a straight-ahead adaptation from any of the probable sources would have been an interesting film, but I have no idea why Scott decided to indulge the kind of new-age nonsense that made LOST shrivel from the poor-mans Vonnegut into the illiterate=man’s LEFT BEHIND.
Further evidence for the theory that Ridley Scott has been thriving on the intellectual generosity of his admirers ever since BLADE RUNNER, which (to my eye) was the last time that his design sense has any kind of plot under it. BLACK HAWK DOWN is better than most of his other recent work, but it still leans to obviously and heavily on the political null-zone of those fade-to-blue washes. Transcendence my ass.
Also, maybe I missed it, but shouldn’t they have payed off the early allusion to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA? Given that the android character repeats O’Toole’s line, “The trick is not minding that it hurts,” there is absolutely no reason that he shouldn’t repeat it when (spoilers!) he is inevitably dismembered admidst jets of milky blood. Just sayin’. Wasteful.
What, no complaints about all the Asian racial stereotypes in Prometheus?
It was a good movie, VISUALLY, alas it had it’s plot problems andthe script was full of holes. I really like Mr. Chaw’s Reviews. They are thought provoking, challenging, compelling, and {quite frankly} ENTERTAINING. I like the Alien Franchise, I am BIASED, as a result, it becomes the Movie-goer’s Right as a Consumer or Purveyor to exact a little bit of the ‘ol “Self-Fullfilling Prophecy”. In other words, IF I think Something {a movie, MY 24 hours in a DAy will be Good, then, mostlikely it will be “GOOD”. O nthe other hand, If i Think I t will SUCK, then I will unconsciously Find any reason, valid or on the peripheral of Semantics to act in ways to make it BAD}. Same goes for anything.
I don’t like, however, Filmmakers/actors, et al, Saying, a movie isn’t “really a prequel”, when in Fact, it Obviously Is: Chronologically, Characterization { Rapace does her Best SW impression back lacks the Innate Sympathetic traits of Weaver’s Beleagured Protagonist.}
Walter, as usual, I do AGREE with you AFTER watching the movie{s}. Your points are valid, and, to be honest my Friend and I went on a Couple of Free passes. If I had to pay FULL AMOUNT, {and I may have} my intellect may have been lacking that day/week. Hey, sometimes it is ok, to be an “Idiot” and I don’t PERSONALIZE what your critiquing and I don’t take Cinema too seriously, not saying you do. At the end of the Day, ultimately, It fulfills the intention of Being Entertained FIRST, and then {after some debacles filter down in my Brain!} Elightened or Educated. “God” day, ‘yall.
Great review!!! You really have to hate this movie to make a review like this.
BTW, I slept half of the movie, but I got this: Centuries ago, god created life on earth and went to another planet. True believers sent a ship full of atheists to capture god and questioning him. In the end, god kills them all (as he does with all atheist that try to question him, like you, mwahahaha) and the only one saving her ass is the one that led them there, ’cause it had to be a girl.
OH! And I also like the new format of the site.
Actually MWD…Alien wasn’t so much brilliantly scripted as it was brilliantly shot. Technical limitations make for amazing use of other devices to get your point across..keep this in mind, Alien was originally proposed as “Jaws in space” and suffered from the same technical limitations which oddly enough, redeemed both films. Steven Spielberg was once a canny film maker and he knew his pneumatic shark looked awful (the only time we see it is in the near destruction of suspension of disbelief when it mounts the boat) so he used music and camera techniques to suggest danger which made the danger all the more terrifying. Jaws 2 and 3 show what happens when someone ‘lets people see the monster’ and they were awful. Now, onto Alien…there are approximately two scenes where we see it and both times it becomes obvious it’s a guy in a suit (one is a horrendously deleted scene that would have wrecked the entire film..if anyone who reads this doesn’t know what scene it is, check cracked.com or the scene where it attacks Lambert and Parker was once LONGER…) so they didn’t show it much. That and the use of light, reveals and suspensful sound effects and music along with Sigourney Weaver’s vulnerable survivor character make Alien so memorable. Script-wise there was not a lot to it, just normal dialogue until the big reveal (which no one knew was coming…check Lambert when the blood spurts, she was terrified), questionable science (which gets more to the created nature of the monsters…) and the mysterious ‘Space Jockey’ that apparently inspired the direction of this film. Great movie and Aliens (aside from producing the Alien queen, Ridley Scott’s solution for egg creation is just…terrible) pretty much took a shit on the original. Oh well…at least Alien 3 for all its faults was much closer in both suspense (the problem was the horrible CGI (bluescreen?) creature shots when it’s obvious it wasn’t there…) nature and tone with the original…163 of the Aliens from Alien and Alien 3 would have easily killed a platoon of marines…okay, I still like the movie but come on!
Just saw this movie on Blu-Ray. Sometimes I find Walter C’s reviews can be a tad self indulgent… but as an ‘Alien’ fanboy since seeing those first previews in Starburst magazine in 1978 (desperate longings to watch a movie I was too young to get in), it’s got to be said that this review is spot on.
Plot holes, retconning, bad effects, pseudo-intellectualism, terrible writing, hateful cardboard characters, clanging dialogue, and *spoiler*! Charlize Theron’s ludicrous cartoon death. There’s nothing to redeem this movie, absolutely nothing. It’s frustrating, stupid, empty and lacks any tension or drive. Oh yes, and the music is way off tone for the mood.
Alien Resurrection looks like a masterpiece compared to this. I guess the take home message is: No Dan O’Bannon -> no canon.
Shame, because the marketing was really effective. I’d love to have been able to wear one of those t-shirts with the big head on them without getting pitying looks.