Prometheus (2012) Review

If you can't take personal opinions that may or may not agree with your own opinions, do not read this review.

I hate this movie. There, I said it right away. I hate this movie SO incredibly much. Seen it 3 times in total now, and it gets worse with each time I see it... and I hope I'll never ever have to watch it again. I saw it the first time with a friend, being completely neutral about it but still curious since it's a prequel spin-off type of movie to the Alien franchise I love so much. I was left feeling like the movie was dumb and uninspired, despite looking so good. Then when I had all the other movies collected - Alien 1-4, Predator 1-3, AVP 1-2, I realized I needed Prometheus to complete the collection. But I didn't feel like it... I had willingly been buying AVP 1-2, both the 2-disc special editions, and been proud of that despite them not being good movies - but Prometheus? I had to write it on my Christmas list to then have my parents buying it for me as a present. And then when I got it, it took me months to watch it a second time. And when I forced myself to to give it a second chance, I realized it's just bad to me, and stupid.
But now when I was going to rewatch it again for this review, I felt like I really wanted to find good aspects with it. And... they kinda are there, but it doesn't save the movie. I am not exaggerating by saying this - watching it now made me realized this is my personal worst movie I have ever seen. It tops Son of the Mask, Dragonball Evolution, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I'd rather watch ANY of those above this one ever again. This movie angered me SO much. I tried to have fun riffing it as I watched it... but it in fact provokes me so much I just can't. I actually had to at one point pause the movie for five minutes, as I was just laying back covering my face with my hands, crying in frustration. I wish I was exaggerating that - but that's exactly what happened.

Let's get the good things out of the way right away. The android David is likable and interesting (the androids have been named Ash, Bishop, Call, David... ABCD, that's weird), and Michael Fassbender does an amazing performance as he always does. The visuals are fantastic - the design of the spaceship they use throughout the movie is beautiful. The opening up until we get the characters introduced after David's montage scene we get of him learning about human stuff is fantastic and promising, making it look like we're in for a great ride. But that's the worst crime of the movie at the same time. The opening is so very promising, the rest feels like the biggest "fuck you" ever. And even worse - none of the good parts makes the movie worthwhile... not even remotely. I couldn't enjoy a single second of the movie, because it was pissing me off with how amazingly poorly written and poorly directed it is.

Okay, so what is this movie about? Well, there are no xenomorphs this time around. Ridley Scott says xenomorphs aren't scary anymore, because they've been overused and we know "everything" about them. Uhm... humans and animals of several kinds can be scary even though I know a lot about them and they are "overused". Also, we know far from everything about the xenomorphs. What about their origin? Their home planet? But hey, this movie will make us learn about the Space Jockey from the first Alien movie, right? Well, that's what the advertisement of the movie claimed... but no. These aren't Space Jockeys appearing in the movie - they are "Engineers". It's not the same creature we saw in the first Alien movie calcified - they are using the same type of machine, but they only use suits merely inspired by how the Space Jockey creatures looked. The Space Jockey had a mouth and eye sockets and long stretched out arms, it was clearly not the suit the Engineers uses here. Ridley Scott is just fucking around with us to give us his "very totally original story". So, what IS this "original" story about?
Well, it's about a group of scientists and historians of different kinds learning about an ancient temple they are going to fly to to find out the origins of human civilization after sitting around through a briefing on it. Now, you might be asking me why I'm talking about the AVP movie? Well, I'm not. I'm talking about this "totally original" Prometheus story. Oh, but there ARE some differences here from AVP. Now it's in the future, on a different planet... and they are expecting this time to get to see extra terrestrial beings. And it's pretentious this time, trying to "question" beliefs and theories... very poorly. And this time, the characters aren't bland and boring you are indifferent to if they live or die - they are generic assholes you WANT to die... except for David. And Elizabeth isn't an asshole, but... okay, moving on to discussing the characters.

While David is the only likable character, he is meant to be the villain of the "humans" (Ridley Scott has now for a second time made the android a villain, what's his deal with that?), and we are actually supposed to relate to the rest. And like I said, they are all assholes - it's like they don't want us to like them. And then there's the main character Elizabeth as said... but how can I describe her? She's mentally challenged. I am not trying to be offensive or saying this in anger - analyzing her character and performance, she IS mentally challenged. Noomi Rapace is an embarrassing excuse for an "actor", only capable of making a performance that looks like she has special needs. She always does these really dopey "DUUUUH?!" expressions, and whenever she "cries" it just looks and sounds like she is laughing while being constipated.

Not only are the characters assholes, but they are also SO unbelievably stupid. I just would like to give an example with the worst series of events this movie gets... or, among it. So when they are in the ancient temple, they get a map over it all thanks to some flying high-tech things scanning everything. Okay, fine so far. They then figure out the air is breathable... so one of them takes the helmet off, telling them to not be such "sceptics". Yeah, because contaminated air doesn't exist, right? And of course nothing happens, like when they ALWAYS do this in movies. I wish his head blew up when he did it, just for the sake of showing you should NOT take that risk. Eventually, they discover a decapitated Engineer, AKA an alien. The guy scanning the area to make a map backs off saying he's going to return to the ship, getting mad at them for... discovering an alien? He literally gets mad for them discovering what they where SUPPOSED TO DISCOVER. He says "he likes rocks", and that it isn't about rocks anymore and that he feels not needed... what kind of a pathetic attention whore is he?! But yeah yeah, this loser goes back along with some other doofus.
So then a storm arrives, just as they discover a mysterious room with it's "paintings" moving around... oh wow, how convenient. Good timing, weather. And they need to run back to the ship as they are going to close it. So they run back, and they are just about in time for it... as Elizabeth conveniently drops the head of the alien they brought back right outside, and she is stupid enough to go back to get it despite the dangerous storm and the gates closing. But after a while she gets back in, nothing bad whatsoever happening to anything or anyone. Literally, this is just forced-in pointless action for the sake of action. While inside, they analyze the head, realizing it's a helmet with a humanlike head inside. They notice there are things on the head, not knowing why it's there... so what do they do? They electrocute the head to fool it it's alive, which Elizabeth says with a dopey smile while nodding and literally going like "duh-huh" - I swear I am not making this up. This is when I had to pause the movie to cry in frustration, by the way. And when they then do this, the head blows up. Geez, no kidding?! Maybe you should have - oh, I don't know - TEST it and ANALYZE it before toying around with it like complete braindamaged MORONS?!! But here's the "icing on the cake" - they figure out Engineers' DNA is identical to human DNA... NO! No, no, no! If it IS identical to humans, then Engineers would be humans. They are NOT humans. I'm glad I'm partially a zoologist, because I know exactly how this can't work. Engineers are far taller than us - about 11-12 feet tall. This means they require a different body mass to not have their weight push them down - which means they NEED their DNA to be different! And they have white skin, black eyes, no body hair... this isn't clever or anything - this is stupid!
And I forgot to tell the "best" of it all... the two guys leaving because they discovered an alien? They didn't return. They got lost in the temple. So... the others had no map and found their way out of the temple in seconds - these guys, one of them SCANNING the area into a map he wears ON HIS GOD DAMN WRIST - they get lost?! HOW?!! Why do you deliberately make the only dude who SHOULD know the way out of the temple get lost in it when no one else does?! You can't possibly write a movie this stupid - it literally is impossible! HE HAS THE MAP IN HIS WRIST, HE HAD THE DEVICES SCANNING THE AREA!!! Oh my god, what happened with this movie?! This literally is the dumbest thing I have ever seen in my entire life... this thing with them getting lost. "There's a scene they deleted where they say they lost the map"... HOW?!! "Oops, I dropped my wrist map attached to my suit"?? THIIIINK!!!!!

And so many dumb things occur in the movie, it's astonishing. The map dude smokes tobacco through his suit, the guy with him sees a dangerous creature doing the type of pose a creature does to tell you it's dangerous but he smiles like an idiot reaching out for it ("durrr, deleted scenes makes it clear he tries to impress the other dude and makes his death sad" - no, it doesn't. It makes it stupid, as it IS), the remaining living Engineer is randomly feeling like tearing off David's head and comedically uses it to punch Weyland with... I can go on and on.
Elizabeth has this creature growing inside of her after having sex with her boyfriend who got the black goo from the temple which David secretly gave to him (by dipping his finger into his glass right in front of his eyes... WHAT?!!), and gets it out through a machine built for men... not pulling out her womb, but whatever. She gets out this unintentionally cute octopus creature, and... the machine staples her wound back together with metal clamps. Oh my god... oh my fucking god, is this a cartoon?! METAL CLAMPS to STAPLE together an open wound?! And if you'd be so bold as to defend this - just TRY to do that in real life! I fucking dare you! And she manages to walk around and even run after the surgery. Sure, she is at times holding her stomach and makes noises and crouches, but... you shouldn't be able to walk, and DEFINITELY NOT be able to RUN! And this also leads to a scene where they - gasp - reveal Weyland is alive, even though they first told us in the movie he is dead. Uhm... who cares? Why did he pretend to be dead? What's the point?! All I can think about is how indifferent they all are to Elizabeth entering the room half naked with a stapled stitch over her belly... that's NOT noteworthy?! And holy shit, Meredith is the daughter of Weyland, I.... don't care.

And the climax... when the alien ship crashes down again, why aren't they running sideways away from it instead of running in a straight line where it's rolling? There's plenty of time for it, for fuck's sake. But yeah, it crashes after the captain and some of the crew sacrificed themselves to stop the alien ship from destroying earth because the revived Engineer feels like it... and after the crash, he runs after Elizabeth to try to kill her. How the hell could he know where she was? And why did he want to kill her? Uhm... dramatic convenience? Anyway, he gets raped by the now grown-up octopus creature (pretty cool-looking actually, I dig the design of it, very well-made CGI), which leaves us right before the end-credits with a alien creature coming out of the Engineer's chest reminding of a xenomorph. I'd just like to note out this is NOT a predecessor to xenomorphs - they are already in carvings on the wall inside the temple, so they've been existing for a very long time already.
But yeah, the movie ends with Elizabeth Shaw and the head of David flying another one of their alien spaceships to their home planet, leaving us with a cliffhanger. And a lot of things are left unanswered. A lot of it was deleted and cut from the movie, because Ridley Scott didn't want the pacing to suffer. Uhm... Ridley Scott... you do realize that it NEVER makes the pacing suffer to throw in important exposition and things explaining what's going on so we will understand things, right?

I know there's no structure to how I tell things in this review... it feels a lot more like a rant than my other reviews. But it's because the movie makes me SO angry. Whenever I try to talk about it, I am filled with anger. It doesn't help I need to be reminded of Elizabeth Shaw, who makes the movie even worse. And... the writing is just embarrassing, and painfully bad. I didn't even bring up everything I hate - there's a lot more convenient events, like when the captain goes away to have sex just as the guys in the cave gets attacked and returns conveniently right after it's over. And the dialogue, the characters, everything... I can barely keep rational, the movie drives me insane.
Yes, the visuals are still great... they never overuse CGI, David is a cool character, the opening is fine, and even the music is nice. But I can't enjoy ANY of the possibly good stuff, because everything else in the movie makes me SO mad and frustrated and sad and angry. This is the dumbest thing created by human beings I have ever seen in my entire life... I am genuinly concerned about Ridley Scott - I am not trying to be mean and rude, but it shouldn't be possible to make a movie this bad. He needs help. I mean that sincerely and genuinly. No words can describe how absolutely awful and horrible this movie is to me. I didn't even get into details on the belief aspects - believing in Christianity despite this movie making it clear Christianity is false... I don't fucking know what to say to that.

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