{"id":2657,"date":"2021-08-19T02:14:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T02:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=2657"},"modified":"2023-01-22T22:24:32","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T22:24:32","slug":"film-review-prometheus-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=2657","title":{"rendered":"FiLM REViEW: Prometheus, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Deleted Prometheus review (Amazon UK):<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More archival reviewing. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I first posted this review, on the Amazon UK website, I gave Prometheus<\/em> two stars. Then I thought about it a bit more. The consequence? I went with my gut instinct, and gave it just the one. Here on my blog I can be more precise! So I\u2019m going with one and a half stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only Ridley Scott movies that I think succeed as what I think of as proper ‘old-school’ science fiction (I very nearly said as a watchable movie at all*), are Blade Runner<\/em>, which is based on the work of a master of the pulpy end of that genre\u2019s literary form, Philip K. Dick. That’s probably why it worked. And the first Alien<\/em> movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alien<\/em> was good, but, speaking frankly, that was largely the result of the strong combination of the visuals, the music, the whole ambience – i.e. the production aesthetic – and some very strong performances. Much modern so-called sci-fi is just dunderheaded action or soap-opera set in space. The Aliens<\/em> series, Prometheus<\/em> included, seem to me to be more horror than sci-fi, albeit horror set in an imaginary future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the H.R. Geiger aesthetic is no longer sufficient to wow, and, in Prometheus<\/em> most of the acting left me wondering if everybody other than Fassbender, who, rather ironically, plays the ‘android’ David, weren’t actually the automatons. Another Amazon reviewer use the term ‘heroically thick’ to describe the acting of some (most, I would say) of the cast. Not only did I not care about the ‘characters’, I was increasingly keen, as the movie hobbled along, to see them dispatched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hotch-potch of ideas, some of them attempts to imagine a near future (smart lighting, ‘drone’ surveyors, etc.), some pseudo-philosophical (the whole ‘answers to it all’ line, and the awful science vs. religion element), doesn’t add up to anything worthy of reflection. Indeed, the grab-bag of ‘ideas’ make for as as unconvincing an ensemble as do the actors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I intend no offence to her personally, but Noomi Rapace, clearly intended as the Sigourney Weaver \u2018strong woman\u2019 type, was lame. And her love interest? Let’s put it this way, I was yearning for him to be killed off, long before the coup de grace<\/em> was finally and mercifully delivered! The crew of the Prometheus came over as a bunch of cringe-inducing frat-brats. I’d have believed in them as pseudy teenagers. But as mature adults, astronauts and scientists, on a serious \u2018scientific expedition\u2019? Nah!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best I can say of this movie is that it passes the time: one of the most enjoyably creative moments was the short ‘Scott Free’ title animation, before the film began! And my favourite part of the actual film was the opening sequence of grandiose landscapes, before the narrative proper even starts! The whole CGI aesthetic, such as is used for the human-like creatures, referred to as the ‘creators’, does nothing for me at all. In fact in the forms it takes here it just irritates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, and put bluntly, it’s an uninspired mish-mash, poorly scripted and acted, about a mess of unconvincing ideas, some of which – like the ‘anti-soul’ hubris of science, for example – are trite, tired clich\u00e9s of our contemporary culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently some guy wrote a big doctoral type thesis on the links between this movie and the old Greek myths of Prometheus, and concluded that Scott’s movie is largely free from any meaningful connections to the many ideas that those myth engaged with. Indeed! It’s largely free of any engaging ideas at all, I find. As some other reviewers have noted, it makes Scott’s better films look like happy accidents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My wife bought this (I’m glad it was only \u00a33!), and seemed to enjoy it. So, I can’t say whether you’d like it or not. But I’m one of the many who remain unconvinced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* Most of Scott’s movies don’t do it for me. Gladiator<\/em> is enjoyable mainstream fun, and I love The Duellists<\/em> (his debut), ’cause I\u2019m kind of nuts for things Napoleonic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deleted Prometheus review (Amazon UK): More archival reviewing. When I first posted this review, on the Amazon UK website, I gave Prometheus two stars. Then I thought about it a bit more. The consequence? I went with my gut instinct, and gave it just the one. Here on my blog I can be more precise! … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “FiLM REViEW: Prometheus, 2012”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-GR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2657"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8179,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions\/8179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}