Wednesday, October 30, 2013

"Prometheus" (movie)

"Prometheus" was directed by Ridley Scott, the man who directed "Bladerunner" which may be the most depressing movie ever.  If you're not a hard-core nerd, you may not know at least two endings exist for the "Bladerunner."  In one it's revealed that Rachel is the newest type of replicant and doesn't have a builtin time to die.  They must have decided that wasn't depressing enough as there is another version in which that ending has been removed.  Instead Ford looks wistfully into the sunset with the presumption Rachel will die in less than four years.  Fade to black.

"Prometheus" has a lavish production.  The visual effects are gorgeous and very well-executed.  In contrast, "World War Z" uses CGI to the point of total absurdity so any money they spent on production was wasted.  Charlize Theron plays the mission commander so there's huge coolness in that aspect alone.

Where "World War Z" was supposed to be a scary, sci-fi horror, it doesn't deliver on any of those but "Prometheus" gives you all of them.  Where "World War Z" is predictable at just about any moment, "Prometheus" isn't predictable at all and it's fascinating from start to finish.  Despite the fascination, the movie is still not worthy of a recommendation to Cat.

The story is kind of muddled and things happen without any apparent explanation.  For example, David 'infects' Doctor Holloway with some genetic material (or whatever it was) but there's no clear reason for why he did it other than experimenting just to see what would happen.  It looks also like, as with "Bladerunner," this one was shot for alternative endings.  The one I saw gave a final scene that reduced that whole movie to a practical joke and the last scene was the punchline.  It wasn't necessary as the movie could have faded to black on the previous scene and still held together.  It would have held together much better, in fact.

On a sci-fi ten scale, I'd give "Prometheus" about 6.5.  Using the same scale, "A Clockwork Orange" would be a 10.0 and "World War Z" would be a 0.0.

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