Prometheus
User Score
6.5 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 1393 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 995 out of 1393
  2. Mixed: 150 out of 1393
  3. Negative: 248 out of 1393

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  1. Millstone
    Jun 8, 2012
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Here is what I learnt from this prequel to Alien:
    * The elephantine face of the space jockey was a helmet, hiding way more human like traits. The design of the Na'vi had more originality than that.
    * The original facehugger was a giant squid that developed within a woman's uterus after she had sex with a man suffering from a worm infection that had turned another man into a zombie.
    * Even if the music does its best to inspire sadness, distress or urgency, it will only highlight just how bland every scene feels.    … Expand
  2. jroman213
    Jun 8, 2012
    3
    It was a waste of time and money, would advice wait for it on blue ray not worth going to the movies to watch this crap. It starts off great than all of a sudden you meet the crew and none seem to be likeable. the main character is annoying and so is here boyfriend who seems like a douchebag
  3. BrandonD
    Jun 9, 2012
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Prometheus was staggeringly bad.

    Part of this was that I was primed to be that Prometheus was going to be "about" something, and failing that, I thought it was going to be sci-fi horror on the scale of (or at least in the ballpark of) something like Alien. And it's Ridley Scott: The dude has made two sci-fi movies: Alien and Bladerunner: both classics of the genre. It's only going to get better, right?

    So, let's start with the good: It's undeniable that the visuals are very striking. Some of the vistas made me want to race off to photograph them (even if they weren't real), and there was a real "internal logic" to the visual style and design of the human and alien environments that made the whole thing seem believable. As usual (and it's hard to fault Prometheus for this), 3d added little to the movie, save for the scenes with lasers and holographs both human and alien, where it helped with immersion. The other bright point is the robot (sorry, "Artificial person") David, played by Michael Fassbender, who steals most of the scenes he's in. He starts out in an earlier montage which influenced by TE Lawrence, _Moon_, and Desmond in the Hatch. After that, he manages to channel a role which is equal parts automaton, adolescent, menacing molester ("I saw your dreams"), and dutiful but ignored son, but closes in the role of toady.

    Virtually everything else in this movie is average through awful. The writing is forced and wooden, and almost hurt to sit through. "Every king has his reign and then he dies" -- I guess channeling King Lear for dummies, but how forced. The plot was implausible and actually fairly uninteresting. The fact that this was pitched as a "big theme" movie had me excited. Instead, we have really hamfisted metaphors and a people working through parental issues in the dumbest and least interesting way possible.

    The really damning failure of this movie is that it even fails as a suspense or a horror piece. I telegraphed most of what would happen very, very early in the movie. None of it was a surprise, the horror was all utterly predictable, and what little subtle there was in foreshadowing required you to already be a fan of Alien (no bad thing, but if that's what it takes to scare people...). There was just no new ground tread.

    The theater I was in actually found itself laughing at some of the lines and situations. This was in no way intentional -- and in fact, when I ran into a friend at dinner (who'd just seen it), he said the way he'd enjoyed the film was to appreciate it as camp. Ouch.

    Probably the best thing I could say is that there is enough sort of directionless "theme stuff" in the movie that you could hack together a good movie out of the pieces: but man, this isn't it.

    It gets a 3/10 on the strength of the visuals. Normally they'd be nice enough to give it a 4/10, but I had to take off a point for the painfully bad old man makeup on Weyland. (another friend: "He looks like Biff from Back to the Future!"). I
    'm really sad about Prometheus, because I really had high expectations.    … Expand
  4. sirrom
    Jun 11, 2012
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Be warned, this film is very stupid. Highly intelligent alien beings created all life on earth yet are stupid enough to revisit ages later and leave us clues and directions to their moon base so we can go there and destroy them. This is a trillion dollar endeavor to reach this moon and this rag tag group of characters is the best Peter Weyland could come up with to see this mission succeed? State of the art probes that can't detect worms or mutated snake aliens. An android with the ability to see into the future. How else would david know that by poisoning a crew member with alien goo he would copulate with his barren girlfriend an she would conceive an alien facehugger? This film has more plot holes than swiss cheese. Since when are archaeologists also biologists and skilled enough surgeons to operate advanced surgical equipment on themselves while a squid tears at their insides? Still not impressed? Evolution only takes minutes and hours in this film, not years or eons. One final spoiler: the alien life cycle has no incubation/developement stage and produces full grown xenomorphs that explode out of the host body, no chestbursters here. Very disappointing film indeed!… Expand
  5. TomHering
    Jun 10, 2012
    2
    Story, characters, ideas, visuals - nothing in Prometheus surprised me. Which is the worst thing you can say about any piece of entertainment. (Gross-outs don't count as genuine surprises.)
  6. Daxillius
    Jun 10, 2012
    2
    Awful script with shallow, underdeveloped characters and massive plotholes. One of the worst pieces of sci-fi writing I've seen in years. Even the great acting and direction can't redeem this film.
  7. phillyjeff
    Oct 24, 2012
    3
    This movie wanted to be Alien so bad, but it fell flat on its face. I thought this movie was going to be good, judging by the first hour or so. Unfortunately the last hour went way off the deep end.
  8. G3R
    Jun 11, 2012
    1
    The cgi is beautiful. The story is an old one, told many times before. What a waste of a great opportunity. I wouldn't waste my money on the theater with this one.
  9. Rossjudas
    Oct 1, 2012
    10
    Simply a masterpiece for TRUE alien fans, the people I talked about this movie with usually complain about the fact that there is no "predator" or "xenomorph" in this movie, holy **** idiots this is a new brand, new story, new carachters, new epic journey, it is on the "alien universe" but fortunately is a different story (did we really need alien 5? I don't think so) and last but not least predator do NOT BELONG the Alien universe just because few years ago came out 2 horrible ****ty movies only for commercial purpose.… Expand
  10. Variola_Major
    Dec 2, 2012
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. So let me get this straight... In the future, two archaeologists discover a 35.000 years old cave painting, in Scotland. Painted by humans who seemed to worship giant aliens, members of superior space-faring race. Similar finds were made all over the world, of artifacts left behind by independent civilizations that shared no contact. Apparently those ancient aliens posed as Gods, were friendly, and yet, with such teachers and sponsors, all that those humans were able to leave behind were cave paintings made with charcoal and some stone tools. THIS ALONE makes archaeologists forget all about Lucy and other famous australopithecines and hominids. Screw Darwin. We were CREATED... umm...engineered. Because one archaeologist "chose to believe so." Jesus of Nazareth was an alien hybrid, she concludes, I guess. Insulting pseudo-religious anti-science diarrhea at it's best. But wait, it gets worse... On those ancient artifacts are included identical star maps that look like an invitation, she chose to believe. Invitation from whom, you might ask, invitation to go where? Well, invitation from our gods, umm... aliens I mean. To go where? WELL, TO GO VISIT AN ANCIENT ALIEN BIOWEAPONS STORAGE FACILITY, OF COURSE !!! So naturally, humans go and visit. Why would a super advanced race of Engineers invite their Children to visit a bioweapons storage facility, and not a Temple of Knowledge???

    A trillionaire named Weyland pays for a space exploratory mission, THE Mission, Mission of all missions. So one would think that such a Mission would be populated by crown jewels of modern science, Cream of the Cream, the Super Intelligentsia, the very best that future Harvard, Oxford and Stanford will be able to offer the richest ,most powerful man on the planet Earth.

    Right ? Wrong. Weyland handpicked a bunch of retards whose intellect operates on a level of a ten-year-old who learned science from comic books, and bad comic books at that !!! An archaeologist suddenly becomes an expert in genetics and biochemistry, while moron biologist gets lost with a sociopathic geologist in a 3D-mapped cave, while being able to communicate with captain. Alien genome is identical to human genome. Scientists remove their helmets twenty minutes after entering a compound on a foreign planet which they KNOW is populated with alien biology and potential pathogens. And when they encounter a foreign organism (after discovering a bunch of mutilated alien corpses !!!), a sinister looking cobra-like worm, the very first alien humans ever encountered, what do they do ? They start laughing and giggling like drunk high school kids, you know, those retarded football types, and they start petting that god-damned thing. 2000-years-old mummified corpses are twitching like they died five minutes ago and suddenly explode, spraying gallons of bodily fluids all over the lab. That's after those silly "scientists" poke the corpse with an electric needle !!! Yes, that's ancient mummies I'm talking about. A woman who just went through fully opened abdominal surgery is stitched like a cardboard and starts running around. Literally ! They find strange organic liquid stored in vases, on an industrial scale, in ancient alien temple - nobody bothers to properly analyze it. Have you ever seen a NASA news conference or mission room after they landed a new probe on Mars? Those scientists are hugging each other with tears in their eyes. Their voices are shaking. AND THEY DIDN'T EVEN LAND ON MARS PERSONALLY, THEY JUST SUCCESSFULLY LANDED A ROVER!!! Landing on an alien world is every geologist's wet dream, every geologist masturbates to the thought of that! And what does our Prometheus' geologist have to say when he wakes up from cryo-sleep? "Don't bother me with your friendship, I'm here to make money." It's like he just broke out of jail. And so on and on. The idiocy of these so called scientists is beyond belief and it just never stops. It just gets worse and worse with every additional scene. It is actually quite astonishing just how stupid this film is. Is Lindelof mentally retarded? Definitely. It's either that or he just did it on purpose, out of sheer perversion. Is Scott senile? Or just criminally under-educated egomaniacal quasi-intellectual masturbator ? You tell me... I'm perfectly able to enjoy "childish" sci-fi, like Transformers. That's because Michael Bay didn't set out to cheat me. He said Transformer movie is about a sexy couple, cool giant robots, ultra-spectacular action scenes and... that's it. That's what Michael Bay promised us and that's EXACTLY what he delivered. I respect Bay for his unpretentious honesty and I wasn't at all disappointed by his films, in fact - I enjoyed them very much ! But this Prometheus was sold to me as a quintessential A-Movie, a masterpiece of serious, intelligent Sci-Fi. It was supposed to be an intellectual Sci-Fi film. I feel raped.    … Expand
  11. BigAlienBoss
    Dec 31, 2012
    0
    This is like a comedy: because all the characters are bumbling idiots. It is like a horror: because there is a lot of foreshadowing, deaths and monsters. It is like a sci-fi: because it is set in the future and has spaceships, etc. It is like a like a Scientology recruitment video: because it has a lot of nonsense preaching. But ultimately it is none of these things. It's just a load of muddled crap. It's so stupid, lazy, sloppy, and unoriginal that it gave me a headache. Worst of all, it *thinks* it is meaningful.

    We need decent sci-fi films. This does the entire genre a disservice.    … Expand
  12. warfield
    Nov 18, 2012
    5
    Out of respect for Ridley Scott, I award this film a 5. If the film did not have high-end effects and production design, it would seem at amateurish as those B-movie black white serial sci-fi adventures that were re-shown on early TV during the 50's and which I then found too corny to watch. Where did they go wrong? And why the sop to the great Alien film series at the end of this film? A real disappointment. I usually trust Roger Ebert's reviews: why the "100" review from him?… Expand
  13. donnelbr
    Jun 10, 2012
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Big and beautiful film, which I enjoyed, but which had literally dozens of plot holes. I feel like a couple of guys got into a room and came up with the story, "yeah, and then when we charge the head, it comes alive, and then explodes, yeah, cool", and "we can make the robot kinda evil," but without any motivation to be? While if you can ignore so much nonsense, you will enjoy this movie, I can't help feeling, over and over, every time I see a big budget film that either the producers are stupid (because it would be so ridiculously easy to patch the plot holes), or they think I am.… Expand
  14. Lambo442
    Dec 9, 2012
    2
    An epic disappointment unfortunately. Ridley's Scott no talent these days. Fassbender was good as always. Gotta give it up for the Fassbend. Some of the shots are striking, and the environments are cool, even if they do seem a bit familiar. It's a bit of a rehash of Alien in way. Come on Ridley, define a genre again for us, create a world like John Carpenter did recently, like you did with Bladerunner. Give us real horror, real suspense like you did in the original Alien. Mind you I thought even that was a bit slow, Aliens was better. Sorry Ridley. I love you for Bladerunner, and Black Hawk down wasn't bad (haven't seen any others) but I know you can do better. You have another Alien film in you. Don't give up. But give us blood curdling horror and suspense.… Expand
  15. Sablcious
    Jun 14, 2012
    3
    Embarrassed: The word that flooded my mind while watching this dismaying display of brain dead cinema by the director of seminal sci-fi works like Blade Runner and Alien. Embarrassed for the Alien franchise the film is supposed to be predicated upon and is now forever soiled because of Prometheus. Embarrassed for the script, seemingly scrawled on a few sheets of used toilet paper by a TV writer who should stay the hell away from the big screen. Embarrassed for the actors who will surely endure many-a dinner party jibe at their expense from peers bemused at their self-demeaning displays in this fatuous film. Embarrassed for myself for wasting 2 hours of my life that I will never get back and countless brain cells likely fried in the process of trying to fathom the stupidity on display before my eyes in this film. EMBARRASSED for the human race, that we've apparently stooped so low as to accept this kind of egregious schlock as legitimate entertainment. I'm even embarrassed for the **** Irruminator' monster that was obviously plagiarised from some 10-year-old's scribble book. (*It will become clear upon watching the film).

    Prometheus is flawed on so many and varied levels that it's almost an admirable effort to manage such a confluence of poor film-making in one, single piece of work. How this film went so wrong when having so much going for it, is a question for the ages.

    Unless it's eventually revealed Prometheus was an industry in-joke, aimed at poking fun at the dullard dolt demographic the industry now predominantly panders to, then I cannot see this film becoming anything more than a byword for abjectly bad cinema.

    3/10 (*because no film is a 1 and there are some worse than Prometheus... SOME).    … Expand
  16. coolunme
    Dec 26, 2012
    0
    I'm not going to waste any time on the plot as it has been discussed to exhausting heights. But I am going to vent my frustration and heartbreak over Prometheus. The grandest disappointment in cinamatic history and science fiction. Why? Its simple. Alien is a staple of science fiction and suspense the likes of which has been attempted many times but never surpassed. The film itself is a mythical force full of mystery and discovery. It had an unprecedented scope of imagination and discovery like the original Raiders of the Lost Ark. None of these qualities exist in Prometheus on any level.

    This brings me to director Ridley Scott. Clearly he is not the same man who so eloquently scared the sh*t out of us while enticing our imagination. I fear that his passion is not to appease our expectations but to create something new. That's acceptable. Prometheus is not. In fact it doesn't even belong in the same scope of storytelling. This is a giant mess of biblical proportions not only in its overreaching ideas of human origins but a complete failure in storytelling altogether. Alien had nothing to prove. It was dry. cold and mercilessly tense. Prometheus wants to be something more while ignoring the principle of what matters most. Imagination.    … Expand
  17. TheMovieCritic
    Aug 19, 2012
    10
    From the beginning of this movie where clues of an ancient civilization were found, to the ending where the prometheus space ship crashes into the other alien space ship, this movie kept me on the edge of my seat. This is a movie you wouldn't want to miss.
  18. MightyMolasses
    Jun 26, 2012
    3
    Expectation: introduced as a prequel to Alien, and directed by Ridley Scott, so incredibly high

    Delivery: For a film so thought provoking, heavy on symbolism, questioning human origin, and metaphysical beliefs, Prometheus was a huge let down. It borrows heavily from an established belief that the Original Man came to Earth from another planet and began civilization on this planet, but i    t never really does anything with it. These studies are interrupted by series of setups and let downs. It's littered bunch of teasers and references to the original Alien, but never delivers. It may have been a bit more enjoyable as a stand alone sci fi flick instead of playing up it's Alien relations. Being introduced as having relations to Alien, allowed my expectations to fly well above and beyond what this movie was actually willing and able to do. Prometheus feels like its stuck somewhere between an Alien prequel, and a prequel to a prequel of an Alien prequel.… Expand
  19. softcharacter
    Jun 8, 2012
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I thought this movie was excellent! It is a great science fiction movie that blends Ancient Alien theories and current biotechnology concerns. Some parts of the plot are left open to interpretation, and viewers who wish to have closure in their films might not enjoy that particular feature. I had high expectations for many months before seeing this film. I followed some fan sites that leaked parts of the movie, and was disappointed with what I read there. However, the delivery and screen adaptation of those ideas were excellent.… Expand
  20. Newphx
    Jun 8, 2012
    8
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I was very happy to finally see a "grown-up" Sci Fi Horror film where not everything is fully explained and in this respect loved Prometheus...to be honest, the script seemed a little light in context and discovery, and .I have to admit to mild frustration in not knowing more about the backstory of the Engineers, and the reason for their malevolence...

    Noomi Rapace is outstanding as Dr. Shaw and Michael Fassbinder is fascinating to watch as the android David.. Idris Elba is excellent as the understated Captain of Prometheus... Let's face it though, the real stars of the film are the CGI experts, designers and cinemotographer Dariusz Wolski makes the film a gorgeous, state-of-the-art masterwork that is not to be missed on a big screen. The Engineers look alot like a Greek base-relief of gods and I'm sure that was deliberate...the film's aliens exceed the original Aliens and their flawless. seamless creation by the CGI designers is truly unbelieveable....not to mention their menace...There is great tension and some unexpected surprises...but it seemed the backstories of the characters were not as important as the task at hand and leaves a nagging feeling of wanting a little more...

    ( I for one would have loved to see the first half of the second act with the humans encountering the Engineers--our creators--and they thilled to see we have found them...they sharing knowledge and information with us (like curing cancer) that would be magical and wonderous...but some members of Prometheus are especially curious about something they keep from us...steal it, and the chase is on to get away from them...but that's just me.)

    Going to see it again...not quite a masterpiece, but pretty darn close.    … Expand
  21. D6M
    Jun 10, 2012
    9
    While this movie isn't perfect, it's still a far better experience than Alien 3 and Resurrection, which recycled the ideas of its predecessors and spit them back out; whereas Prometheus attempts to take the franchise in a new direction while still staying true to the core elements of previous installments. Aside from one motive left unexplained and an unaddressed continuity issue in the time line between Prometheus and Alien(it would seriously take 2-3 sentences of narrative to bridge everything together...but sequel maybe?), the movie exceeded my expectations; between its amazing cinematography/visuals and convincing acting, this crazy story somehow becomes believable.
    This is far from a bad movie and the 3D version by far had the best 3D I've experienced yet(no obvious scenes with way too many people at too many varying distances or stuff flying towards my face). To wrap things up, this is a great movie that is well worth seeing on the big screen in 3D, even though it has some faults, they aren't that detrimental to the film itself, but rather it's continuity between it and it's current sequel Alien.    … Expand
  22. anothercoolguy
    Jun 10, 2012
    10
    Another great Ridley Scott movie, he is a great director, it has awesome special effects and it has to much suspense, and we have a great performance by a new movie star, Michael Fassbender, who is really popular at the moment
  23. Apemonkey666
    Jun 11, 2012
    9
    Is this an Alien prequel?: yes, definitely! Does it answer all of your questions?: about 70%, some stuff is still unexplained. As this is a Ridley Scott film it surely looks VERY nice, super hi-tech production design and very sleek VFX. I watched it in 3D but you can skip that coz it doesn't add much. I had incredibly high expectations for this film and they are mostly met. The basic ideas from Alien are carried over and expanded from Alien 1. You don't actualy need to have seen any of the Alien movies to appreciate it as the story works on it's own. If you are a fan of Alien or have appreciated any of the Alien movies I would highly recommend seeing this film, you won't regret it!… Expand
  24. c00lhand
    Jun 11, 2012
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Visually stunning, yet the underlying story lacked futuristic plausibility and authenticity for the created realm. Initially I thought this was going to be this year's "best movie" despite the terrific competition, but unfortunately the movie left me scratching my head way to often. There's so many things I can nit pick to death about this movie that I can only rate it as "a good watch". There's so many questions I wish I could ask the writers, the director, and producers. Here are a few of the things that irked me most... (1) when reaching the planet, why wasn't the planet observed from space first to decipher the best place(s) to land and investigate? They should have treated this moment to be similar to how we in our present time treat Mars exploration. Study the geology of the planet and decipher where best to investigate further. Instead we got an immediate surface cruise with the hope of stumbling across an interesting feature to suggest that intelligent life exists/ed. (2) The removal of the space suit head gear inside the cavern just because some readings reported the atmosphere was similar to earth's air was extremely stupid and unrealistic. The risks... (a) unknown viral contaminates within the atmosphere that may not of been capable of being read by the scanner could have made the scientists deadly sick, any smart scientist wouldn't have risked that possibility, (b) any contaminates the crew themselves might have introduced into the alien atmosphere would have been equally foolish. Just think back to the history of our own world, when Europeans discovered America the sicknesses that got passed to the indigenous people were huge. The fact that all the other exploratory crew simply followed along after the male scientist took his off bothered me... was that a form of peer pressure or mass stupidity? (3) The Biologist and Geologist scientists. Part 1: When the crew discovers the dead alien body why is it alright for the crew to let the biologist guy walk away? Wouldn't the study of that corpse be one of the reasons he was brought along in the first place? Secondly, the Geologist guy, how is it that the guy who's supposedly the expert on understanding the cavern and the one who's in charge of the mapping drones, how is he the one who gets lost in trying to get out of the cavern? Plus, these two characters had the ability to stay in constant contact with both the ship and the rest of the exploratory crew while making their way back out. Not-to-mention, the Captain of the Prometheus was able to watch all of their exact positions within the cavern while being in constant contact with them. Part 2: These 2 characters were so scared of the dead alien body that they left the rest of the exploratory crew to get back to the ship, they also showed that same attitude when they were asked to check out a mapping drone which was signaling that an active life was near it, then when they find themselves back at the initial chamber they decide to have a look around? The biologist guy even decides to reach out in awe when being confronted by a worm-like creature, funny considering he was freaked out by the possibility of encountering something alive just a bit earlier and now he's all stupidly curious. Where did the character consistency go? (4) The investigating method the exploratory team had once the sealed chamber was opened. I'm surprised that the chamber wasn't treated more like a mix between a crime scene and a decontamination zone. Instead you had the characters simply walking around in awe, touching and handling a preserved alien head with their space suits and the AI character messing around and touching **** without using some sort of sample collecting tool(s). Plus, the fact that black goo substance was seen on the top(s) of some of these containers was that not enough of a reason to be more cautious about breathing in the air within that room? (5) The AI's decision to open the alien container inside the ship. First there's no evidence of him running any scans on it, which implies he couldn't have know the potential harm that could have been done to the atmosphere within the ship. He simply pulls out the vase like container from cool storage and he begins opening it. He even eventually cracks open the glass-like inner container to expose the liquid inside. What was a supposedly super smart AI thinking? That action endangered everyones lives within the ship, even his creators. Then there is the question of what happened to the rest of that sample? Did he destroy the rest after taking the amount on his finger to the male scientist or did he keep the rest of it. If he kept it, how did he prevent it from oozing like the black substance was doing in the chamber? BTW, the fact that the black substance was oozing out of the vases inside that chamber, does that imply that all of those glass-like containers were broken, except for the one he took with him?… Expand
  25. BladeFan
    Jun 11, 2012
    2
    I'm a huge fan of early Ridley Scott sci-fi. Bladerunner and Alien have been two of my top ten movies of all time, for over two decades. It's probably because of this that Prometheus failed so hugely for me. As soon as the first preview was released, I was amped for this film.I watched every preview, Ridley Scott interview, and pre-release item I could find. I knew I had "expectations" that few directors could meet--including my all-time favorite. Now, it seems, I cannot find five redeeming things to say about the film without thinking of 85 complaints.What was the purpose of the Prometheus "God" in the beginning sequence, drinking the "alien Koolaid?" Why were the "gods" angry with the "earthlings? Why couldn't the creature designers pick and stick with ONE alien creature design--instead of the squid-vagina-penis-cobra-Alien 3 morphed creature combos? The original Alien design was so perfect, so basic, so original; it was as if Scott couldn't decide on how to represent that concept in the "pre-story" so he just went with ALL the ideas. What was the point of making the beautiful Bishop re-dux robot character, David, an evil-plotting-alien-spawning bad guy? How many "homages" does one director get in one movie? There was the 2001 Space Odyssey -bicycle-basketball scene, the John WIlliams' Star Wars theme music. .... The narrative is splintered, incongruent, and non-sensical. The special effects canNOT save the film from its many contradictions and easy horror ploys.… Expand
  26. oblivnow
    Jun 11, 2012
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ridley Scott is a great director, but he appears to be perfectly capable of making awful movies. Prometheus's problems range from absurdly predictable plot to characters acting in such a stupid manner that horror movie cheerleaders would be appalled. There are many instances were the internal logic of the story breakdown or never develop at all. The horror scenes are not suspenseful, with jump scares that you can predict to the second and blinding stupidity. Combine that with large amounts of pointless religious symbolism, no character development, no emotional connection and an ending that borders on offensive to the viewers intelligence (the main character knowing leaves the planet on a ship that contains a bio-weapon that can cause extinction with the explicit purpose of landing on a populated planet) and you have yourself a bad, boring movie. I cannot give it a lower score, however, because the acting is generally good (its the writing that fails) and the movie contains one of my favorite death scenes ever.… Expand
  27. STS
    Jun 11, 2012
    10
    This is a visually spectacular film and one of the best sci-fi films I've seen in a while. I think people that complain that it isn't 'like Alien' just aren't paying attention, and anyways, why would you want Scott to just remake something entirely the same. This is set in the same universe, but tells a different story. There are some weaknesses, such as some of the character development, but then again, the original Alien didn't give us a lot in that regard - perhaps it's more noticeable here due to how much it is trying to show. As for unanswered questions - I have answers for each one, they might not be the "Right" answers, but it's what I'll choose to take away from the film, and as a real sci-fi fan, I love that. I usually hate 3D films, but this was gorgeous, and so smooth, even better than Avatar. Not a perfect film, but a real quality science fiction film for fans of the genre. I sincerely hope something else will follow this film!… Expand
  28. YoCritic
    Jun 14, 2012
    0
    I have been racking my brain all day contemplating just how this terrible movie could have ever been written, made and released. And what I came up with is drug addiction. Everyone involved in the decision making processes of this movie must have been high, hung over or in withdrawals to allow for so many terrible decisions, ideas, errors and redundancies to be incorporated into one two-hour movie. Talk about the inability to criticise one… Expand
  29. jsoard
    Jun 16, 2012
    2
    Eye candy, but jeez,... give me a story that makes sense. I actually feel used by this genre. I endured the Star Wars saga hoping for the heart of the first (or fourth, as it were). It never came. I endured the Matrix Reloaded and Revisited without the magic of the Matrix. I was hooked by Battlestar Gallactica and followed it to its end hoping for satisfaction but was handed loose ends and cheap shots (Starbuck as an angel? Pleez!). Alien and Aliens are iconic but I knew better that to follow the idiotic franchise. Trusting R. Scot for Prometheus, I bit the bullet and got burned. In essence, it's a fabulous setting for a seriously flawed, potential jewel.… Expand
  30. Weis-mueller
    Jun 17, 2012
    10
    This is the whole ball of wax--action, danger, horror, and the fascination of the unknown. Faster than the original Alien--which is one of my all-time favorites--and more challenging, more thought provoking. An android of immense subtlety and power, both mental and physical, acted with great skill. A powerful heroine. Superb 3D and CGI. And, one more thing! If you can't "figure out what was going on" you're not trying: I thought of a plausible fact-matching explanation for every uncertainty in the movie within ten minutes of leaving the theater! That's doesn't mean I've stopped thinking for better explanations--it's that much fun. Just question your assumptions, and all of a sudden the possibilities will start falling into place.… Expand
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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
65 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 42 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 24 out of 42
  2. Mixed: 17 out of 42
  3. Negative: 1 out of 42
  1. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    Jun 11, 2012
    80
    Scott may always have had an eye on the box office, but from "Alien" and "Thelma & Louise" on, he has made women into heroines. In that regard, he's still ahead of the curve. Rapace's scene is a classic of its kind; it tops John Hurt's notorious misfortunes in "Alien."
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  2. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    Jun 8, 2012
    70
    It's a different sort of experience: a stately, somewhat plodding but endurable science-fiction saga.
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  3. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    Jun 8, 2012
    75
    There's definite mastery here, but it's hardly a masterpiece.
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