Prometheus - The Franchise Killer

ah alien it's the quintessential sci-fi horror movie about a group of people trapped in the endless depths of space being picked off one after another by a monstrous creature lurking in the shadows of their vast ship a monster they can't escape fight or reason with it was a masterclass in atmospheric horror and brooding tension not to mention some incredible creature effects that are still unsettling even today when James Cameron took over for the inevitable sequel he successfully retained the fear factor of the original movie while injecting a welcomed dose of Gong Hall nineteen eighties action given us one of the greatest sci-fi action movies in cinematic history nice work Jim but then David Fincher came along and Chateau alien 3 a relentlessly grim and bleak movie that destroyed the fragile optimism at the end of the last film killed off the star of the franchise and somehow give us a creature that looked worse than the one from 13 years earlier the fourth film directed by some French guy I can't pronounce was a haphazard attempt to merge elements from all three movies ultimately added nothing smart or interesting to the franchise and don't get me started on the alien versus Predator movies the point is that by the early 2010's the franchise was in trouble there hadn't been a good movie in 25 years every attempt to reboot the series had failed miserably and nobody seems to know how to fix it then came the announcement that Ridley Scott was returning to direct a brand new alien prequel titled Prometheus holy [ __ ] we all thought Ridley Scott was the guy that started the whole franchise and he'd gone on to direct some incredible movies in his career if anyone could restore alien to its former glory it was him and then we watched it I suppose I should try to summarize the plot so you can understand just how badly this film goes wrong Prometheus kicks off with a big lumpy I'll be no bodybuilder getting dropped off on a primordial earth by a giant black space dildo the place is bleak and barren and entirely devoid of intelligent life a bit like Glasgow on a Sunday morning then he drinks a really dodgy shot that makes his body melt and he falls off a waterfall and dies [ __ ] man I thought I was a hardcore drinker flash-forward to the late 21st century and a bunch of scientists led by Lisbeth Salander are on some Scottish island in the middle of nowhere and what they find is absolutely shocking no not that I'm talking about a map painted on the wall of the cave pointing to a distant planet with absolutely no information about his purpose or its meaning so naturally Elizabeth decides the map is an invitation and she wants to go there and just see what happens and when someone quite rightly questions what she's basing that on she's like because I believe well I'm convinced so anyway guy Pierce shows up in really bad old man makeup as Wayland remember the wheel and yutani corporation everyone to finance the expedition to the alien bodybuilder planet that's nice I'm sure he doesn't have some shitty ulterior motive that'll be revealed later in the movie so anyway off they go in a ship called the Prometheus clever stuff Ridley the Prometheus is captained by idris elba who spends most of the movie looking like he doesn't know or care why he's here there's an Android named David to do all the science stuff and Charlize Theron is there to represent Weyland who died of boredom or something so they land on the planet and there's no sign of life but there is an abandoned alien base nearby and it seems like the air inside er is breathable so they just go right ahead and take their helmets off because I guess deadly viruses toxic spores on microscopic bacteria aren't things you need to worry about but feeling about this then they find a big room with ominous-looking containers everywhere and there's a fossilized alien bodybuilder that got his head chopped off by a [ __ ] door and then this ginger science guy gets scared of a dead body that's been lying there for thousands of years and he's like I think we ought to leave but Lizabeth is like nah it'll be fine so ginger science guy runs away with some other [ __ ] and then David helps himself to one of the containers even though he has no idea what's inside and it could just as easily be a bomb that could destroy the Prometheus and kill everyone on boards and oh no there's a convenient storm on the way so the team evacuates back to the prometheus but ginger science guys map reading skills are worse than your average tumblr user and he manages to get lost despite having a complete holographic layout of the entire complex not to mention constant radio contact with people who could literally walk him through the journey step-by-step how exactly did you get this job anyway meanwhile Elizabeth and the other idiots are messing around with the alien body builders head and the discoverer it's got human DNA in it whatever could this mean anyway they stick a power plug in its ear and bring it back to life because I guess that's the thing you can do with the decapitated head that's been dead for thousands of years but then it starts screaming and they lock it in a cupboard and it blows up what the [ __ ] anyway some [ __ ] named Holloway is down in his sorrows because he didn't get to meet any live aliens even though they've literally just made the greatest scientific discovery in human history and the technology they've uncovered here will keep the world's finest minds occupied for decades David's had enough of his [ __ ] so he spikes Holloway's drink with some black alien jizz from the stolen container and then Holloway goes off and has sex with Lizbeth I hope this doesn't have horrifying repercussions for both of them later while all this is going on gingers Science Guy and his mate are scratching their arses when interes Alba spots something on the motion sensors and they're freaking out but he's like nah I'll be fine lads and he leaves the porn charlize theron because he thinks is an Android this is real this is stuff which happens in this movie then an alien vagina snake shows up and this idiot tries to pet it like is a [ __ ] dog or something remember these are the same guys who were terrified of a fossilized alien head what's are you doing you absolute tool why are you not running in the opposite direction as fast as your science legs can carry you but then it all goes wrong and they both lie down for a while so the storm passes and the team goes looking for the two idiots but then Holloway starts to mutate from the black alien jizz and Charlize Theron is like I'll handle this and she torches him with a [ __ ] flamethrower how do you like your man Elizabeth extra-crispy thanks ah but then Elizabeth doesn't feel insecure either so she goes to the medical Bay for a check-up with David's and it turns out that Holloway impregnated her with the black alien jizz before you know no I'm no doctor but how exactly is this thing growing so fast in cider without using up a corresponding amount of organic tissue from the hosts body nah whatever David tells her to just go with it and she's like nah it won't be fine so she runs away and gets on an automatic surgical bed which for some reason isn't programmed for a female anatomy patriarchy and uses it to cut out the alien squid thing then she locks it in the room a room with no sources of nutrition that a living creature could use to grow and sustain itself keep that [ __ ] in mind my friends then she runs into Toyland who's actually still alive well as alive as old people can be I suppose he faked his death for reasons and he financed the whole mission so he could come here and ask the alien body builders to stop him dying of old age what the actual mothering [ __ ] this is what you gambled everything on a trip halfway across the galaxy to a planet that might have been destroyed abandoned or never even existed why would an alien species even be remotely interested in saving one old man they've never met before what makes you think they're even capable of helping you if all you want to do is live longer why not just put your body into stasis and wait for human medical technology to advance [ __ ] off film oh and it turns out that Charlize Theron is his daughter I was able to put this together using all the subtle clues the movie drops Heather what kind of dialogue is this who exactly calls their dad father in 2019 never mind 2091 know where all this shit's going on ginger science guys certainly shows off Pope's side the Prometheus like the movie just hard cuts and he's there all of a sudden nobody sees him approaching even though it's broad daylight no sensors detect movement or anything Idris Elba just stops not giving a [ __ ] for long enough to spot him on a video camera Wow the security around this ship is [ __ ] magnificent unlike the godless tools that they are the red shirt crew opened the door to mess with him but it turns out he's now a mutated zombie ginger Science Guy what the [ __ ] is this mutated zombie ginger guy goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of people but then someone runs him over with a big [ __ ] truck and then Idris Elba sets him on fire so he's totally dead now what exactly was the point in this scene it's just so weird and out of place like it should have happened much earlier in the movie but the editing guy got cooked out of his mind and just jammed it in wherever he felt like it haven't we all me ah where's ginger Science Guy been all this time what exactly was he mutating into does he have a squid baby inside him like Elizabeth did why does he look like Harry and the Hendersons nah whatever so David and Weyland head out to the alien base and Elizabeth goes with them despite the very obvious evidence that both men have withheld vital information about the mission and are almost certainly responsible for several deaths including Holloway's and they allow her to go with them despite the fact that she just survived the alien squid baby doesn't trust them one bit and will definitely try to derail their plan but oh well the strip needs it to happen so whatever I guess so they go into the underground base there's actually a giant spaceship and David wakes up one of the alien body builders that's still in hibernation and asks it to make Weyland young again but it's like now I've got more important things to do me so it kills wee ones and it rips David's head off and then it starts to power up the spaceship and Elizabeth magically knows that it's heading to us to wipe out humanity really like why this thing's been asleep for thousands of years it has no knowledge or even understanding of the current situation wouldn't his first priority be to figure out how long it's been asleep and catch up on current events I mean for all it knows earth might not even exist now also what's with all this technology remaining fully functional after sitting idle for thousands of years I struggled to get my car started after a two-week vacation now whatever so interests elbow Rams the Prometheus into the spaceship because I guess autopilot isn't a thing in the future where ever seen this before then it crashes to the ground and rolls like a [ __ ] giant donut and it crushes Charlie's there on because the concept of running sideways is too mind-blowing for her to comprehend but then the alien bodybuilder claims out of the wreckage and it comes after Elizabeth's really like why he totally didn't give a [ __ ] about her like ten seconds ago and he has no reason to waste his time with her now but we've gotta have that final showdown am i right so the girl with the surgical tattoo lures him into the medical pod from earlier where a giant squid monster makes violent one-sided love to the alien bodybuilder Wow lucky it was able to magically grow from a baby squid into Cthulhu in the space of a couple hours so anyway she collects David's robot head which is somehow still fully functional despite being disconnected from its power source and uses it to pilot another giant alien space donut to the bodybuilders homeworld so she can ask them a bunch of questions that will never get answered unless it that is the plot of Prometheus what's a nightmare this movie is from the mother of ideas it tries to put across to the nonsensical plot riddled with coincidences conveniences and out-of-sequence events to the low functioning autism of most of the characters it's just a disaster in every way there's absolutely no payoff to anything nothing that gets set up has any answers or resolutions it's the cinematic equivalent of watching a STONER steering off into space while sitting in a puddle of his own urine even the concept of this movie was all wrong once in all what happened before the events of alien what to know where exactly the Xenomorphs came from what the space jock he was and how that derelict spaceship will ended up crashing on that planet no no I [ __ ] didn't and I bet most other people didn't either alien was compelling and interesting because it didn't try to answer these questions it was an effective horror movie because it combined the genuinely unsettling and truly alien creature with our primal and instinctive fear of the unknown it didn't try to ask grande pretentious questions about the nature of human existence the origins of life or the conflict between science and religion because it didn't need to when the crew of the Nostromo stumbled across the dead body on that alien spacecraft we didn't need or even want to know what the space jockey was or where it came from it was enough to know that for all its advanced technology it still died at the hands of the alien that would ultimately wipe out the crew of the Nostromo - the mystery of what exactly happened on that doomed ship was far more compelling than any answer as a scriptwriter could actually provide and as it turns out we don't even get any [ __ ] answers anyway this is actually a totally different but visually identical spaceship crashing into a totally different but visually identical planet piloted by a totally different but visually identical space jockey Wow what are the odds we certainly don't get any answers to the big questions of this movie pauses either so the alien body builders created all human life they why for what purpose and that being the case why do they no want to kill us all Prometheus likes to draw comparisons between humans meeting their creators and David interacting with his creators and sites coming to the conclusion that the people who create them are total [ __ ] but it's a ridiculous comparison to try to make androids like David were created to perform specific functions aboard ship they exist to serve and work for humans display well this [ __ ] says whereas humans were simply dumped on a rock and left to their own devices for a few million years and yet the minute the alien bodybuilder meets one of his own creations he instantly decides to wipe out the entire species there seems only reasonable to ask why but it's not just the big philosophical questions that get left unanswered this movie even leaves simple logical plot points hanging wide open what were these alien body builders running from in the hologram recordin a xenomorph a squid baby a vagina snake the black goo then if so why were they running into the room where the black goo was stored which brings me to another question what the [ __ ] is with the aliens in this film the original movie had a simple logical and well-designed life cycle for the xenomorph you started off with a basic egg with a face hugger inside which impregnates anyone who gets too close then a day or two later it's simple but horrific and it's easy to follow now what the hell we got there's the black goo the vagina snakes the mutated zombie ginger Science Guy the squid babies and whatever this thing's meant to be and I've got no idea how any of these different light forms relate to each other is the vagina snake like a face hugger can the zombie ginger science guy mutate into a xenomorph what would the squid baby turn into if you left it for long enough well none of these things make any sense trying to pick apart this plot logically is like trying to find the gender studies graduate that weighs less than a metric ton the casting is another bone of contention for me the original alien had a cast of quirky interesting character actors who fit perfectly with the truck drivers in space atmosphere the Scot was going for none of them were particularly fit or heroic looking because they didn't need to be they look like real jaded working-class people doing a job that no one else probably want needs no of course everyone has to be young and beautiful and totally uninteresting Charlize Theron is a top class actress and she's proven she can handle strong characters in her time but she's an absolute plank of wood here with nothing approaching charisma or screen presence Idris Elba spends most of the movie looking like he totally doesn't want to be there probably because they forced him to do a shitty American accent and I suspect numiri pass was only cast because she was flavor of the month after doing Girl with the Dragon Tattoo she certainly doesn't bring much to the main role she's not striking or interesting like Sigourney Weaver was although Jesus Christ anything's better than this charisma void from alien covenant also some I dine Z I'll never understand why they covered Guy Pearce in latex when there's plenty of actual old people they could have cast instead so is there anything positive I can say about this film it looks good I guess and by good I mean there's some possible landscape shots scattered around what was your favorite scene the grey primordial earth the grey Scottish Island or the grey planet the Prometheus lands on when I try to sum up the train wreck that is prometheus I'm reminded of the words of one of the greatest thinkers of our time the only thing worse than a fool is a fool who thinks himself wise ultimately prometheus is a dumb muddled inconsistent mess trying in vain to hide its shortcomings behind a mask of pretentious intellectualism it's a movie whose heavy philosophical ideas are totally incompatible with its subject matter not to mention far beyond the ability of its dumbest script to properly address the only good thing to come out of this debacle is that it reminded me just how good the original alien was a nut film came out 40 years ago god I hate movies anyway that's all I've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 3,179,826

Keywords: Noomie Rapace, Fifield, Idris Elba, Alien Covenant, Ridley Scott, Ripley, Elizabeth Shaw, James Cameron, Aliens, Engineers, black goo, review

Id: i-x78afiSZU

Length: 19min 36sec (1176 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 23 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/YOUREABOT]

Ah, an excellent reason to pour another round of jack and coke. Cheers u beautiful bastard!