Yesterday wasn’t just any given day. No, because it was the Alien day. So I (Robin Ek, TGG) thought for myself that it could be a good idea for me to review Ridley Scott’s sci-fi/adventure/horror movie “Prometheus”. Especially since “Alien: Covenant” is less than one month away from release now. Anyways, I’m most likely one of the few people on this planet that hasn’t watched “Prometheus” before. So, yes, you guessed it. This was the first time that I’ve ever watched the movie.
So, straight off the bat. I had a very open mind about “Prometheus” before I actually watched the movie myself. In other words, there was no hype nor any super-high expectations on my behalf. Even so, I knew more than well that Ridley Scott had directed this movie (whom I am a huge fan of). So it was pretty hard for me to hold down my expectations throughout the whole movie. Nevertheless, I had one hell of an emotional ride with “Prometheus”. As the movie went from pure brilliance to flat down idiocy in just a couple of minutes.
So in my opinion, Ridley Scott fumbled with the ball on the goal line. Thus, he missed his chance to create a timeless, ageless and immortal sci-fi/horror movie. Instead, we got a movie that could have been so much more, and that fact will forever torment my mind. Now, don’t get me wrong, “Prometheus” is very watchable with no doubt. However, it’s nowhere near as epic as “Alien” or “Aliens”. So don’t expect any epicness of that kind, because then you’re just going to get disappointed.
I mean, just the plot itself for “Prometheus” makes absolutely no sense at all from my point of view. As there are way too many things that I found to be both unlogic and stupid, things like:
– You do NOT pay one billion USD for a ship + crew and have crappy weapons and an unarmed ship that’s going to travel to an unexplored part of the universe.
– It’s not a smart move to send out both the daughter and the founder of a big mega corporation into the jaws of death (bye-bye bloodline).
– Pretty much everyone on the Prometheus crew are naive to the max (like little children who have just found the keys to the local fairy ground).
– I had a really hard time buying into the “this is the best crew that money could buy” aspect of the movie. As most of them were dumb as hell. More so, everyone one was rude as hell to each other throughout the whole movie as well (I had zero feelings for anyone but Shaw)…And even the most stupid of morons would have realized that “we’re in this shit together, so I better play nice in-order to get out of this mission alive”, but nope.
– It makes zero sense whatsoever to remove your helmet when you’re on a planet that you know very little about. Furthermore, the crews space suits are absolutely worthless.
– How can the engineers be so superior to the us (the human race) and still be so very stupid? (let’s just say that the engineers doesn’t seem to know all that much about “safety precautions” when it comes to handling biological weapons *cough cough*).
Simply put, there were just too many moments like this in the movie, and that ruined the credibility of the movie for me. As the script and most of the characters felt dumbed down to the extreme. I actually have a golden rule when it comes to scripts and plots. You see, if I can come up with a better script/plot and dialogs in five minutes. Then it’s not very well done. In the matter of fact, I’ve been reading the Aliens comics for about a month now, and most of the really old comics from the 80s and early 90s (I have only read that far) beats “Prometheus” with ease.
So I truly hope that “Alien Covenant” won’t make the same mistakes as “Prometheus” made (like lazy script writing, for example). As for “Prometheus”, it’s worth watching at least one time. As I believe that the movie has enough memorable scenes to make up for the bad ones (in my oppinion, it’s Marc Streitenfeld and Noomi Rapace that make the movie worth watching).
Pros:
+ Nice special effects
+ Marc Streitenfeld’s movie epic soundtrack
+ Marc Streitenfeld and Noomi Rapace saved Prometheus from becoming an absolute disaster of a movie
Cons:
– You don’t really get to know the crew all that well, and I had zero feelings for most of them
– Plenty of unlogic moments
– The plot is anything but well made
– Very predictable outcomes in most cases
Actors: 3/5
Story: 3/5
Sound/music: 4/5
Effects: 4/5
Viewing value: 3/5
Verdict: 3.5/5
Don’t expect any “Alien” or “Aliens” epicness out of “Prometheus”, because you won’t get it. Nor should you expect to experience anything near as good as the “Aliens” comics, because you won’t. Nevertheless, “Prometheus” is still a very watchable movie. As it has a handful of golden moments that makes up for the not so awesome moments. So buckle up, because you’re just about to become space cannon fodder!
Title: Prometheus
Genre: Adventure/Sci-Fi/Horror
Format: Blu-Ray
Producer: Ridley Scott, David Giler and Walter Hill
Director: Ridley Scott
Release date: 2012-06-08
Average grade internationally: 7/10 imdb.com
PEGI age rating: 15+
Robin “V-Act” Ek
Editor in chief
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround
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Tags: Aliens, Horror, Marc Streitenfeld, Movie review, Noomi Rapace, Prometheus, Ridley Scott, Sci-fi