Sunday, June 10, 2012

Review: Prometheus

IMDb

Title: Prometheus
Distributor: Scott Free Productions
Director:Ridley Scott
Writer(s):Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof
Staring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender,Charlize Theron,Idris Elba,Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green,Sean Harris, and Rafe Spall
MPAA Rating: Rated R for sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language.
Running Time: 124 min
Synopsis: A team of scientists journey through the universe on the spaceship "Prometheus" on a voyage to investigate Alien life forms. The team of scientists becomes stranded on an Alien world, and as they struggle to survive it becomes clear that the horrors they experience are not just a threat to themselves, but to all of mankind.

What Others Are Saying?

Rotten Tomatoes: T-Meter: 74% (Fresh), Top Critics: 73% (Fresh), Audience: 75% (Like It)
Metacritic: Critics: 64 out of 100, Users:6.8 out of 10
MRQE Metric: 69 out of 100
My Review

Source Material:  Original work written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, set in the "Alien" franchise universe.

Entertaining Value:
  • Action Elements: This film was fairly action pack but not overly exciting.  
  • Comedy Elements: A few good one-liner, this film fit the horror sci-fi genre. 
  • Dramatic Elements: Very little, if any.
  • Sci-Fi / Fantasy Elements: Very beautiful.     
Cinematic Value:
  • Acting and Dialogue: 7: Hands down the strongest performance is Michael Fassbender as David the "Prometheus"  android. A character that was build to be visually human but in the inside he's nothing more a robot, therefore lacks a soul and can't understand human emotions. Add in pride and a directive programmed by a master with alternative motives, then the mission at hand, and you got yourself a home brewed complex human machine. His portrayal was brilliant. As far as the other charters go they were average at best. But that may be because they were basically written to die, meaning little to know importance for them to be in the movie, but we can discus that latter on. Personally Guy Pearce should have been used more, or maybe even cast as a different character. I feel his talent wasn't utilized very good. The lead female was good, but not strong of a character as Sigourney Weaver in the original Alien film. I kind of would like to see some of actor that were potential candidates for this film over the actors in the film. Actors like,James Franco or Ben Foster.            
  • Art Direction: 8: The creature design has the same awe but gross awesomeness that the original Alien films. When a filmmaker brings the same craftsmen back from a previous film of his to over see his new project, the results is good. 
  • Cinematography: 7:Personally it was pretty good. I was gladden to see this film was film with Red camera. I m a big fan of digital filmmaking. Don't get me wrong 35mm film is great but some of the digital stuff out now days, primarily Red camera, looks damn good.    
  • Direction: 6: I felt the film seem a bit rushed. There seem to be lit no character development. Like I said before I felt that the majority of the character were written in just to be killed off.    
  • Editing: 6: Personally it was to much like a summer action flick, therefore attributing to its fast pace. 
  • Screenplay: 6: The story I felt was weak. I felt the biggest let down was character development. I feel that there was a whole ship filled with a hand full of crewman with personal motives to why they were there. Once the audience found out why character "A" was there he or she was killed off. I understand you need a good amount of pointless characters to kill of in horror move, but dose every character need to be such character? I also think that part of the reason this film struggles with good writing is because of its identity crisis. It was intend to to be a film set before "Alien" as "prequel" while at the same time be a stand alone film with its own mythology, separated from the mythology created in the Alien franchise. I see this film as more or less as an "Expanded Universe" with origin ties. The redeeming factors of the story was the H.P Lovecraft themes of the film, and the search for ones self and what we truly believe in. Those two aspects of the film reeled me back in, every time back character development cast me out.           
  • Sound and Music: 6: The music didn't really do its job.
  • VFX: 9: The film made a cool looking future that actually looked beautifier in every way. This is one of the strongest attributes of this film if not the strongest.     
Overall: 7: This film was personally enjoyable, mainly on the fact I enjoy a decent sic-fi film. There is a great deal of flaws with this film critical. I can't fully recommend to everyone but overall it was decent to say the least.