I finally saw Prometheus and... it sucked.
What should have been a movie with deep philosophical questions and amazing cinematography turned out to be just another summer blockbuster. Incoming rants... and spoilers.
First of all I'd like to say that the premise is great and the beginning is quite promising. Until the crew of the ship is introduced and the things start going downhill. They are not prepared in any way for their mission and it seems really idiotic that humanity would send people like these for such a mission. For example, just minutes after the 'scientists' are taking off their helmets, on the basis of 'it seems fine to me', dipping their fingers into strange organic ooze, and lugging a severed alien head back to an unquarantined spaceship in a sandwich bag. What kind of science team is this? Then they take the head back to the ship and stimulate the head electrically to reanimate it like in old Frankenstein movies. Of course it is not mentioned why would they use such a rudimentary thing and why they are "guessing" how to do it, after all we are talking only about the most important discovery in our human history. Doesn't matter though, because in the end they blow it up anyway. Another thing that I don't understand is the fact that they took off their helmets. Yes the atmosphere was suitable for breathing but didn't they mind the fact that on this planet they were the aliens probably interfering with the planet's ecosystem and maybe other life forms? Even so, humans need the suits in order to survive on the surface but in one scene near the end we see Elizabeth in the suit but without gloves. What the hell? The characters were mediocre at best at I never felt attached to any of them.
Moving on to the movie's theme, again there are major problems. This should be a prequel to Alien however I have not seen any real evidence that would suggest this. Even so, trying to explain the origin of human life and why we were made (if we were indeed made) is really confusing in this movie. Ok so we were made by these "engineers" but we assume this just because we have similar DNA? Given the fact that they were obviously superior to us in every possible way, isn't it at least possible that they could change the shape of their DNA over time? Don't even get me started on the carbon dating scene.
There would still be a lot of things to say about the movie but at this point I suppose that everyone reading this understands where I'm coming from. The weak plot, weak cast, the failure do deliver some tension and suspense totally killed the movie. I was still waiting for the "alienesque" scenes where the female protagonist would remain alone and fight the aliens, I was still waiting for the tension to rise, I was waiting for an alien to burst out of someone's chest as a tribute to the first movie, but nothing happened.
If you want to see a good movie on this theme go look at 2001 A Space Odyssey. Much better in every possible way.
ps: Just at the end of the movie we see a spaceship taking off. What is that supposed to mean?