Prometheus

Technically impressive, Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic a bit fails to surprise and leaves depressive emotions.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron

Budget: 130 million | Box office: 150 million (1 week)

IMDb: 7.7 | Metacritic: 65

Prometheus, Ridley Scott

I was expecting Prometheus to become at least this summer’s biggest surprise and best movie. Inception, in other words. But with new Ridley Scott’s vision during the development process going further away from classic Alien, the feelings became more and more mixed.

Starting from the good points, Prometheus is really impressive technically, which shouldn’t be a surprise given the scale of the movie, money and talent involved. It was cool to see classic surrealist’s H.R. Giger works reimagined in the film. The scale of objects, the planet landscapes, the monument for ancient human preceding civilization were really impressive. I loved the space suits, they leave some kind of retrofuture impression. The movie was filmed with RED Epic – one of the most advanced current 3D equipment, which is used (though in next-gen 4K and 48 fps standards) in The Hobbit production.

And then the creatures. First the glimpses of them, later the full scale episodes. CGI work, created mainly by Lola (Avengers, Snow White, Hugo, many other movies), are truly photorealistic, but the problem for me was that this time the creatures look (and actually feel) ugly. Not in a kind of fascinating scary way the aliens looked, but disgustingly ugly.

The rest parts of the movie kind of match this idea. All the time you feel the depressing feeling hanging over everything. As if Ridley wanted to create something close and far away from Alien at the same time and present a deeper, darker idea of this search for beginning of humanity and life in general (I hope it won’t attract uneasy religious disputes).

The main characters best represent this dual idea. They are played impressively, especially Michael Fassbender’s android and Noomi Rapace’s (the Swedish Girl With Dragon Tatoo) “Ripley”. It’s great that director continues to go the same path which he in essence discovered and James Cameron so successfully continued (Sigourney Weaver was nominated for Oscar in his Aliens – the only time for sci-fi horror genre). But trying to be so serious and desperate the characters become too predictable and again depressing.

The worst thing is that Prometheus is just an introduction to new sci-fi series. Of course nobody these days make big budget sci-fi or fantasy movies without leaving an open door to sequels, but this time it’s just too obvious and dull.

I’m not saying it’s not worth to watch Prometheus. It is, and in the best possible conditions. The movie has its own unique style, clear and in a way interesting message, but the nature and general feeling of it is just too depressing.

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