“Short version: utterly gorgeous 3D and a phenomenal cast are wasted on one of the most profoundly, fundamentally stupid movies I’ve seen in a long time.”
We went to see Marvel’s Avengers yesterday (great movie), and noticed that Prometheus was just starting in another theater as we were walking out of the one where it was playing, so we could have done it for nothing, but weren’t up for a double feature, particularly given what I’ve been reading about it.
I was with him up until he said it was worse than The Phantom Menace — maybe he saw TPM in 3D…
Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 74% on the tomatometer.
I think the review you linked goes a little overboard to emphasize the movie’s apparent stupidity, such as making so much of how two guys who built laser mapping robots got lost. Speaking for cave mappers, yeah, technically we’re lost much of the time, even though we’re busy taking survey shots. Of course being “lost” is really just a matter of not knowing exactly where you are on the map at the moment, which is so common to all of us (streets and unfamiliar buildings) that we don’t think about it unless the lack of orientation defies our repeated attempts to resolve it. So in that regard, the movie is actually very accurate. People start walking in what they think is the right direction and stubbornly stick to the incorrect path longer than they should. Then they try a different path, and they repeat the process several times before asking anyone for directions.
Another of his complaints was about the captain leaving the bridge while two crew members were camped out but in radio contact. Hrm, spend eight uninterrupted hours twiddling thumbs and waiting to respond to two whiners who might call with a stupid question, or grab a quicky with Charlize Theron? Not a hard call. ^_^
Yes, well, there are a few unanswered questions…
People, it’s a movie. What did you expect, War and Peace?
So, there are no stupid books…?
Mainstream Hollywood is becoming increasingly self-serving and irrelevant. It’s the cinematic equivalent of the New York art scene in the late ’60s and 1970s: self-styled geniuses and charismatic scenesters engaging in soixante-neuf and calling it “art”.
Hollywood’s attempts at creating deep and Meaningful are laughable only a truly deep person with a truly meaningful point of view can pull ioff that kind of storytelling, and such people are precisely the kind of folk who don’t get to make movies in Tinseltown.
As for H’wood’s “pure entertainment” output, it’s almost unwatchable. So jaded are the fans, and so unimaginative are the “artistes”, that even Hollywood’s best work barely reaches the level of popcorn entertainment. It took six superheroes and a gazillion bucks worth of CGI to make the most entertaining movie of the year so far (the Avengers). What’s next – a dozen superheroes and two gazillion bucks’ worth of CGI? I enjoyed watching Thor and Iron Man fight aliens, but as I walked out of the theater I remember thinking “So what?”
The real action is over at Kickstarter. Kickstarter – or something like it – is going to bust Hollywood. People who still go ga-ga over mainstream movies are like the “gourmands” who prefer to eat the same old boil-in-the-bag crap at the Olive Garden when there’s a street lined with quirky, family-owned Italian joints one block over. There will always be a place for Hollywood’s mass-market Lite-beer/lite-flavor entertainment, and even their occasional attempt at “beechwood-aged” art, but in my opinion the future of filmmaking – and music, and radio, and animation, and comics, and most other forms of entertainment – is strictly homebrew.
I thought it was Ok (6 out of 10 stars), and didn’t even see it in 3D.
The reviewer’s a lawyer.
Nuff said.
Saw it at the first showing Friday AM, in IMAX 3D.
Didn’t like it at first, as it seemed like the ST:NG movies: an ordinary TV science fiction episode streeeeetttttcchhhed to two hours plus. The eye-candy was great, but it just felt a little too flat in the story and acting.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it all weekend. And noticing interesting little elements that hadn’t registered at the time. There’s a lot more depth to the story and the symbolism/metaphors involved than is apparent on the first viewing. I’m actually tempted to go see it again (though I suspect some of the flat performances would still be annoying).
And of course, the Iceland stuff at the beginning was fun, since I recognized a lot of it from a trip a couple years back. I stood on the same spot where the first Engineer drinks the cup of goo. I’m sure Californians see familiar places in movies all the time, but this was pretty cool to me.
Y’all need to go back a few posts on that site to see why he was so annoyed with the actual movie.
Yeah, he kind of built himself up for a fall…
I liked the setting and I liked the premise but the execution was terrible. It wasn’t even very interesting. None of the characters are developed well. David is the most interesting character but he remains an automaton throughout. Vickers and Janek have potential but their characters are explored to the depth of about a centimeter. None of the other characters are terribly interesting, original, or likable.
None of the actions of anyone in this movie makes even the slightest bit of sense. Things happen, the plot progresses, but you’re left wondering what the motivation was. There are several things that happen that make no sense whatsoever and are so dumb they boggle belief (trying to avoid spoilers so I won’t be specific). And one of the most supposedly dramatic points in the movie (the point near the end when Janek decides to put the ship to a specific use) is so anti-climatic it’s ridiculous. And the big revelation which ties together the culmination of the story effectively comes out of nowhere, a plot point incongruously spewing out of Idris Elba’s mouth because it seemingly couldn’t have been developed any other way.
Given the context of the movie and its relationship to the Alien movies many of the dramatic twists and reveals were obvious well in advance.
Sure, in many regards The Avengers had more elements of ridiculousness and unbelievability, but The Avengers had better and more interesting characters and a better put together plot. More so, it was fundamentally a comic book movie. Prometheus has far higher pretentions but it misses them by a wide margin. Which is a shame because there is so much potential with this material and these actors.
It’s almost like George Lucas had a hand in this movie. When i was a kid I watched Star Wars and was filled with wonder. Now I can barely watch Episode IV without feeling ill.
This movie seems the same way. Zero character development, stunning visuals, and totally botched plotline/reality/etc. I won’t get into spoilers, but the more I think about this movie the more I felt betrayed by the marketing (which actually was borderline brilliant….)
Saw it today. It wasn’t War and Peace. It wasn’t Citizen Kane.
It was 2 hrs of IMAX 3D, popcorn munching, sci-fi, replete with aliens and humans, stereotypical deep space, space ship trip characters, in a oh-sh1t-what’s-gonna-happen-next movie. IF you went to see this, after seeing the trailers, and expected MORE than that, then ya’ just plain screwed up, IMHO.