Movie Week – Prometheus

Image via Minimal Movie Posters

Another day, another double feature.  Yesterday’s theme was Steven Soderbergh films.  Today’s is “one word title.”  First up is Prometheus. 

Prometheus is yet another film that I’d meant to see in the theater, but never found the time to check it out.  However, since it was available On Demand I figured there was no time like the present to make up for that error. 

I’ll admit that I was worried that some of the negative things I’d heard about Prometheus had crept into my head. 

The first time I ever got any inkling that Alien had a devoted following was maybe seven years ago.  I was hanging out with Jay1 and we decide to grab a bite to eat at KFC and we were sitting next to some guys who were having an animated conversation. 

They were talking about “face-huggers”, “chest-bursters” and “queens.”  It took us a minute, but we finally gleaned they were talking about Aliens. 

Granted, I knew that Alien was successful enough to spawn a series of films, but I didn’t realize that it had devotees.  Well, it was those same devotees who nearly soured me on Prometheus, with their disappointment. 

A ton of people speculated or expected Prometheus to be a prequel to Alien.  People hit the internet (gasp) with their disappointment or voicing how underwhelmed they were.  Honestly, I dug it. 

First off, Prometheus looked great.  Visually it’s a stunning film.  The planets looked foreign and beautiful.  Those caves were scary and the ships looked futuristic.  I lost myself in that film. 

I love Ridley Scott’s obsession with artificial intelligence.  David is a great addition to his cast of weirdly creepy artificial life forms.  And I dug the ambiguity with Meredith Vickers, how everything was designed to make you speculate that perhaps she was an android.  It added a cool level of intrigue into the film. 

Honestly, the entire cast did a great job.  Being an Idris Elba fan, I enjoyed his work as Janek.  Fassbender was obviously a treat to watch.  And of course the (lowercase) aliens were creepy and scary. 

The story of them getting into space because of Weyland’s quest for immortality was slightly corny, but it got us where we needed to be. 

And I liked that, to paraphrase Ridley Scott, that Prometheus and Alien shared DNA.  It was a treat and a bonus, but Prometheus stood well on it’s own. 

I wasn’t disappointed with Prometheus, nor did I find it underwhelming.  But then again, I went along for the ride.