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Prometheus

Prometheus (2012)

June. 08,2012
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7
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R
| Adventure Science Fiction Mystery

A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

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Fallen Eye
2012/06/08

It took an entire 33 years, for this Alien franchise to show any signs or promise of progress. A WHOLE 33 years. Alien sparked questions it didn't answer, however, that is understandable as it was the first and posing questions was its role. However, Cameron's Aliens, Fincher's Alien 3 and Jean-Pierre's Resurrection did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, NOTHING, NO-THING, to move this story forward, and for that, Prometheus is automatically FAR, FAR, FAR, better.What are these aliens? Where do they come from? What do they want? The planet on which they were found, is that their home? If not, who's home was it before their invasion? These are some of the many questions that, 3 sequels and 2 spin-offs over a period of THIRTY THREE (33) YEARS, NEVER, EVER, WHATSOEVER, bothered to address, or even acknowledge, until Prometheus.Admittedly, the characters in Prometheus, including their actions, seem a bit warped at times. Charlie seems to give up INCREDIBLY easily. 1 visit to the alien ship, with zero exploration anywhere else, including all the many other parts of said ship, and he is ready to completely give up, after a lifetime worth of work, and a once in a lifetime opportunity. The 2 copilots felt extremely random. Janek seemed majorly unbothered, even at the expense of his fellow crew members. Miss Vickers it appears, should've really stayed on earth, though in her defense, there is a part in the film where she provides some acceptable rationale, when talking to her father. And David, at some points was intelligible, and then at others, inconsistently questionable.However, because this film FINALLY addressed questions lingering for DECADES, with ultimately awesome answers actually, it was thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining. The aliens were manufactured by a superior version of humanity, who created humans too, and now seemingly want to use those aliens to destroy us. Why? How? When?Prometheus is NOT perfect. It is very flawed. While taking place in 2094, Prometheus is before Alien, which took place in 2037, among many of its imperfections, including mainly how it handled its characters. However, the story finally moved forward, but more importantly and relevantly, in an EXCITING way, with perhaps the most incredibly appropriate titan, I mean, title.Here's to hoping we don't have to wait until 2045 to find out who this superior race of humans actually are, where they come from and what their agenda is. 7/10.

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blaronde-94538
2012/06/09

Trying to understand this movie gives me a headache. Many scenes don't make sense. Is it just me??

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cmills-98693
2012/06/10

Prometheus breathes new life into a series that has been laying dormant for a long while. While by no means a perfect film, what Prometheus brings is a new aspect rather than the usual horror supplied by previous Alien films. A new approach and plot lines rather than the frequently used 'survive' goal of the usual rag-tag group. Visually, Prometheus is beautiful to see, the usual Ridley Scott visual masterpiece is supported by the Hollywood weight of Fassbender and Idris Elba in strong roles. However the film is not without issue, some small but niggly plot holes and some perculiar story progression at points can lead to confusion or possibly irritation at flaws. Overall Prometheus is a strong piece of cinema. Weaving science fantasy with horror and development of a horror icon. A good step as a prequel, leaving a lot of tantalising doors open for the next film to explore.

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arrgh-46956
2012/06/11

Prometheus (2012)Details: Genres: Horror, sci-fi, thriller. Run time: 118 min's. BBFC certificate: 15.Synopsis: Two archaeologists execute a space mission to a distant moon they suspect may be home to aliens.Intro: How exciting. Scott's made a return to the Alien universe, to give us a re-vamp with today's much-enhanced technology.The experience: Right off the bat, you notice that this will be a very different experience to Scott's original Alien film. The (too-) long opening credit sequence gives many beautiful panoramas of a cold landscape, giving the film a rather grandiose tone, very different from the menacing claustrophobia of Alien. We're then given our first horror scene (that was quick), which, instead of being bloody and gory like the stomach-burst in Alien, is way more fantastical, making use of cutting-edge CGI. Seriously, you literally see a victim's DNA fibres breaking apart - how much more intimate can you get? We then get our title opening, which emerges among lusciously detailed microscopic images of dividing cells.Now we're moved promptly on to an archaeological dig where our two main characters are excavating the bunch of cave paintings that will lead them into space. The paintings show an ancient civilisation doting upon a sign from the stars which could indicate life beyond the Earth. It does seem rather odd that these two archaeologists, who seemingly have no previous experience in space exploration, decide, on a whim evoked in them by an ancient cave painting that could mean any whimsical old thing for all they know, get motivated to become space pioneers at this stage, but trust me: you'll soon come to realise that solid character development is not one of this film's strongest factors, and that's putting things mildly. So, the movie yet again transitions, this time to showing the explorer ship Prometheus drifting, at a great distance from the camera, towards its destination. Then, abruptly, we get an instantaneous close-up of the ship, along with a bunch of stats, some of which are padded with standard form gibberish that only those with a maths PHD will be able to make either eye or tail of. Those details us mere mortals will be able to decipher tell us that the archaeologists who started the mission only took four years to both get the training and get on their way; wow, if the horror scene at the start of this film was quick to emerge, our main characters are progressing at light-speed (in more ways than one).We're then transported inside the Prometheus, where the guardian android, David (played well by Michael Fassbender) is keeping himself entertained, amongst spying on the dreams of one of the sleeping crew members. When the crew are revived, they're given an introductory speech about why they're in space to begin with. Weird; it would surely have made more sense for those details to be revealed to them before they even signed up for their posts.As the introductions to the main characters begin, you very quickly realise that David is the only one possessing any development whatsoever; the rest are shallow, as barren as desert sand. Regardless though, it's not long before the crew start getting shown what's what by the moon they've come to. Yes, before you forget, this is an Alien film, so it's got to have some aliens in it. But we're still not given any more horror scenes for a while from this stage. Even when the crew members actually land on the moon and start investigating, the closest we initially get to a thrill is the discovery of a headless humanoid in a suit.It's clear that at this stage, Scott's trying to give us a throwback to the "half-way horror" technique of the original Alien: that being devoting a huge chunk of the movie to building the suspense while leaving the blood-fest until later. But while in Alien, the application of this technique was strengthened by the claustrophobia, here, it's overshadowed by the hugely ambitious set of scenes leading up to it. We as an audience have been transported through what could have easily been made into three acts of film time, in the space of barely half an hour. All that variation of scenery doesn't leave much room for tension, so the movie has already lost a bit of its trademark there. At this point, you're hoping the film will make up for that by bringing something unique and positive to the table.So, we now get moved towards the second, more eventful half of the movie, where things start to hot up for the Prometheus crew. It becomes increasingly apparent the sinister secrets the moon is hiding, and just after the half-way point, the horror starts becoming properly substantial. There's a hugely grotesque arm-break; a face-melt; a flame-thrower execution; and one particularly gory scene where an alien is actually pulled from within a character's belly, with not much left to the imagination in terms of the surgical detail.But once all that's done with, the gory fright-night starts to peter out, leaving more room for storytelling and giving sermons on that whole meaning-of-life thing. "There is nothing." "I know. Have a good journey." While the spiritual side of things detracts from the horror here, it does nonetheless add extra substance to the storyline, and it also gives David, already mentioned as being the highlight character of the whole movie, ample opportunity to shine. And we're also given a few large-scale adventure-thrills at this stage, which stops everything from getting too slow. By the end of the film, you're tired, simply because so much has played across the screen in front of you.Post-viewing analysis: Not a match of form by any means. While the gore-porn delivers while it lasts and the plot keeps you suitably well gripped, the bad script-writing alone drags things down a long way. A film of this sort, if not primarily focussing on frights, can only be as strong as its characters, and sadly, the characters in this film are largely just flops. Even their very background development is a mess. As I said at the start of this review, the two main characters are archaeologists before becoming space pioneers. That must surely be counted one of the most stark changes of career imaginable, and - who knows? - I may have been taken with that risky plot-line if it had been executed neatly, but it wasn't. As I said, four years isn't enough time for someone to single-handedly change their sights from the dirt to the stars and get on their way.And honestly, even when our two leads make it to their destination they don't seem qualified for the role they supposedly obtained from a reliable company. They seem like two excited kids who've just found the cave of wonders, rather than two serious scientists there for formal investigation. And the rest of the characters - excluding David - are either just as under-developed or nearly so. Getting onto the matter of David as a character, as I keep saying, I like him. He's got a reasonable depth of personality, and Fassbender's mesmerising eloquence makes him very watchable.Verdict: 3/5 There are major gaps in the character development, and hence, the very storyline itself feels far-fetched and forced. That said, the horror is good, the solid story layers that are there add spice, the effects are good, and you can't go wrong with Fassbender. Not even close to being up there with the original masterpiece it's a prequel to, but still a fairly solid sci-fi thrill ride.

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