And here's my lil' recap, as usual.
Warning! I'll try to stay light in the spoilers areas, if possible. In any case, don't read this right away if you fear I might spoil any of the movie's many surprises....
Let me start right away with this.
How was the movie? Great...but...
First up, I just want to say I love watching big science fiction movies with big budget, the way Hollywood doesn't seem to like that much anymore nowadays.
It was big, it was loud, it was creepy and fascinating all at the same time.
Sure I'm sure fanboys and some other nerds will nitpick. Heck even from purely a movie standpoint there's some problems with it.
But I liked it.
The move was basically the myth of Prometheus - adapted as a scifi film.
Without spoiling anything, you know, "taking the light from the gods" and playing "god" creating life, etc.
The question here's is what are the consequence for either man or "the original engineers" (aka Alien's "Space Jockeys"). Yes, it's a bit Lovecraftian , and !SPOILERS!they even got a Chtulu-like creature in here at some point.
Like Predators before, 20Th Century Fox didn't take much risks in making a new entry in the series and simply disguised this new modern take on the original film for a modernday audience.
That's the secret behind this movie.
Predators was simply Predator 1's jungle and characters transposed to an alien planet.
Prometheus basically Alien 1 but instead of a Xenomorph (...or not?) we have a Space Jockey/Engineer this time around.
The movie follows the same basic structure.
Crew arrives on mysterious planet, explores ship, infection, monster on rampage, final climatic fight aboard the lifesupport ship with monster(s). The End...or is it?
The movie serves as a prequel to Alien but explore some new territory Ridly Scott always wanted to explore...before other directors/writers and Fox started following-up his original classic with the same character (Rpiley) and monster (the Xenos).
In a way this movie's the real sequel (or rather prequel )to the themes and universe of the same film...but because of all the stuff that happened in-between (sequels, games, comics, pop culture, etc.) this movie might seem a bit off or apart.
Mr. Scott was already talking about making a third one, this time closer to the events of Alien, either in-between both films or long after everything.
I liked the fact he went free around with the concepts, not taking care if story elements, details or other "continuity issues" worked together. (with the old Mr. Weyland from the AVP films for example, which was such a bad movie anyway...)
He actually got Damon Lindelof from Bad Robot (and Lost) to rewrite the script as less tied-in with Alien. Which is great to explore the same universe.
The picture was so perfect! I missed watching a new blockbuster from such a good director, nothing like those Michael Bays and other Paul Andersons....
Every screen, every angle, every scenery was well presented and well thought.
The musical score was a bit... on the downside.
The score from the previous Alien movies were so iconic and perfect. Here it got either a bit too generic or too similar. The overall tone was closer to the action-filled epic sequel Aliens.
But I'd have preferred something closer to Alien 1's atmospheric and oppressive sound.
The characters were a bit generic as well, not well defined or interest. Which made every death a bit unimportant.
I know some disliked her, but I actually kinda liked Noomi Rapace in the main role.
Her love story/motivations/boyfriend on the other hand...
The crew was just a bunch of douches mostly.
Besides my hero, Capt. Janek, who was awesome and easily the most likable of the bunch!
In the end, it was an highly awaited movie with great hype and all.
I found it great.
But...
So much more could have been done with it.
As a movie, it was fantastic...but a bit too simple coming from Ridley Scott, who usually nails such interesting and original characters in his films (see the fantastic Matchstick Men)
As an Alien movie...well despite what you might hear online, I found it much better. Exploring previously unexplored elements turned out better here that in The Thing prequel. Because the tone was the same here and it didn't feel that cheap. I loved that Space Jockey-ship. While "The Thing"'s spaceship was such a letdown...
I loved the creatures, the creepiness of it all. The "original of life" storyline. Big fun science fiction.
But the movie could easily have been shorter/better handled. The characters more interesting. And music more appropriate.
