Prometheus

Well... slow morning, so I decided to go see Prometheus today rather than waiting until tomorrow. I'm a fair Alien-series fan. My favorite is Aliens, though I recognize it's essentially a whole different genre than Alien and I respect that movie as well. So when I heard there was going to be a prequel (even though reports over the last couple years waffled on whether it truly was or wasn't meant to be such), I was interested.

Now, I can say there are many ways in which I would rather have spent two hours and $7.25.

There are elements of a good movie there. There are elements of tying together the "history" of the Alien universe. And yet the story felt to me like such a disjointed mess that I can't say I really enjoyed it. Even Alien Resurrection and AVP, neither of which I consider good movies, were at least sort of fun to watch in that "sure, it's predictable cheesy sci-fi action, but who cares" kind of way.

Prometheus, to me, seems like it's trying to be more, and failing. While it does lay out some pre-Alien events, pretty much nothing about the setting is actually explained. The jumps from pre-civilization to clues that will lead to the journey to the journey in progress, and I feel like the glossing over of such a massive interstellar undertaking belittles it. The theory put forth by the ship's captain makes a fair bit of sense... except that it doesn't really mesh at all with the premise behind the trip in the first place. The aliens of the movie feel weak, unexplored, and shoehorned in to fit the setup in Alien. While there are some decent moments of wonder and some decent moments of action, the whole thing just never came together for me in any solid way.

Maaaybe I carried too much in as far as expectations. I tried not to. But I walked out feeling like there really wasn't any point.

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