I've seen Prometheus twice now. 2D and 3D. And one thing is for certain, its certainly sealed the fate of 3D with me. Didn't really notice it beyond a few scenes here and there. Picture was far too dark. Far more enjoyable in 2D in my opinion.
As for the film itself. Well, would I be hounded and shot if I said that it came off as a slightly better written, acted and directed version of AVP? There were beats that almost felt identical to me. Eg Fifield and Milburn's relationship felt like Verheiden and Millers in the unrated cut of AVP. Except with the overt sappy "We'll get through this" nonsense from Anderson's script.
Even the overall concept is near identical. We are going to find the origins of civilization. Except it won't matter a damn forty minutes in, when we are being infected, impregnated, eviscerated. Which is the problem. The lofty and profound ideas being (supposedly) addressed are basically being tacked onto the bones of an old Alien Prequel script and it shows.
The central performances were fine enough. Noomi Rapace delivers a decent form of Ripley-lite. Michael Fassbender was deviously innocent
Guy Pearce was completely and utter wasted. His performance was fine, but why bury him under all those prosthetics? A man chasing immortality, I was certain a year ago that we would see an Old Man find his fountain of youth in this movie. All he finds is a milky droid's head in his eye...
Idris Elba was cool and collected as Janek. Dude even managed to get his freak on with Theron's Ice Queen Vickers. Mac Daddy or what?
Now, what exactly is the score with Vickers. Back at Comicon, Ridley hinted that there may be two robots. Was Vickers the second robot? Did she survive the Juggernaut squashing to return for the inevitable sequel? The secondary and tertiary characters don't really get much to do. Rafe Spall adopts an American accent as a characterless botanist. Sean Harris seems like a no-BS, "ain't go time for this shit" type of guy, until he discovers the fate of The Engineers and gets all Hudson and Lambert on everybody. Katie Dickie, a Scottish actress seems to be trying so hard to come across as Scottish that her accent sounded forced. Ravel (Benedict Wong) and Chance (Emun Elliot) are the only other characters with a bit of dialogue, which mainly concerns a bet they've put on as to why they are on the planet in the first place. Did they really have to use the generic future sci-fi currency of "Credits"? Shares would have been a cooler little nod to the first Alien film. Everybody else is fodder.
Which kind of brings us to pace and editing. Ridley has quickened his pace, and the movie tends to rush a bit in some scenes. This is more a trend of modern movie making than anything else. The movie does show some signs of heavy editing. Especially in the "Fifield Attack" scene. Originally, this scene was supposed to take place as Weyland and co head back to the temple to meet the Last Engineer, with Shaw jumping in the Rover and running Fifield over. The scene now takes place concurrently with Shaw's "C-Sec" scene, and as a result suffers. It feels superfluous and tacked on. Blu-ray cut, anybody (which btw should be 10/11/12, if anybody noticed the "Footage Property of Weyland Corp tag at the end credits
)
The music was not noticeable, it kind of disspeared into the scenes, basically telling the audience to feel scared or feel sad. The sound mix was excellent though, particualrly in the Prometheus landing scene. The cinema shook!
Then there is the ending and The Alien Connection. All through the film, I felt like some sort of Xenomorph Detective, trying to piece the puzzle together. Unfortunately, due to Lindelof's rewrite, the Alien connection seems to have been arbitrarily removed and replaced with something else which "kinda hints" at Alien. What is the carving on the Ampule Chamber wall. A Queen? I'm sure I spotted a facehuuger on the lower right of the carving too. What was the Snakehugger? It has acid for blood and tries to get inside you body. And that's about it. The black ooze contained within the ampules seems to be the source of of this parasite, as evidenced by a little retina wriggling on Holloway's eyeball which ultimately leads us to Squidhugger, and the single most dissapointing design in the movie. Seriously, some calamari is the best they could come up with? And if you liked that, you're gonna love this...
Tiny, Impy, Goblin, Venom Horse Mouthed, Pointy Headed, ADI Xenomorph wannabe runt. Which we see in a rehash of AVP's denoument. Seriously, why bother? I would have been content, dissapointed but content to watch the Juggernaut fly off, Shaw and David bound for Engineer Paradise. But to have this awful, weak fan boy service scene tacked on, just made me groan. Again, I blame Lindelof's rewrite. Presumably, in Spaiht's draft, they landed on LV-426, cut to the end, Engineer is impregnated tries to climb back into his pilot seat but ends up chest bursting, whatever. Cue Ripley. Lindelof appears to have lazily redressed these elements and said "Aha, but wait for the sequel!" If Lindelof is attached, I won't be waiting for anything.
Apologies for the length of this. I've waited years for this and needed my cathartic release. I needed to get back on the horse. Where, for me, its rider shall be forever known as a Jockey and not an Engineer...