In space, no one seems to have heard of quarantine - at least not until the mid point. Until then you've got people on a strange planet taking off their helmets because they can breathe air, not caring about anything, bringing back to the ship willy-nilly. Two workers don't want to be around creatures but then later one of them reaches out to touch a creature. No one seems excited at the prospect of going to a planet to discover life. After they discover aliens the captain and his crew seems bored. People knock out others, run around the ship, and no one seems to notice or care. There are lots of pop culture references to things like Lawrence of Arabia and Stephen Stills (because you know people today make pop culture references all the time about the 1880s).
It's got two of the least believable characters in science fiction films in recent years - Holloway, played by a Billy Zane imitation, who is meant to be an archeologist but seems to have wandered in from a media studies course, doesn't seem remotely interested in the discovery of alien life (because they're dead, as if it wasn't enough); and the captain, who doesn't seem interested in what's going on either, then at the end we're meant to believe he's going to make this big sacrifice on nothing more than a hunch (and his two other pilots, about whom we know practically nothing).
The characters in the first three Alien films all felt real - they were doing their jobs, worried about overtime and their health, bitched about their boss, wanted promotions, defended their surrogate daughters; they were cowards and/or stoic, gung ho, some were in over their heads, others got religion. No one seems real here. No one. No one worries about quarantine, or health, or the fact they've discovered an alien civilisation. No one's particularly professional or good at their jobs. It's a bad script, with lousy character work, and the sort of confusion that comes from far too much talking about it.
The spaceship in the first three movies all felt realistic - cramped, dirty, battered. Prometheus here is like a flying hotel with massive corridors and rooms. Who is the crew? What are they doing? Do they have an attitude to the incredible events taking place? Where is the emotion?
The movie is also disastrously undercast. Noomi Rapace is one of the least memorable female leads in recent years - it's a great role but she does nothing with it. Logan Marshall-Green and Idris Elba do what they can with their roles, which are awful. Charlize Theron isn't that great either although at least she does push ups in her underwear. Michael Fassbender comes off best as the android - but wouldn't he look at a more recent film than Lawrence of Arabia in 2093?
Some positives - the murder scenes are exciting and well done, the storm is terrific, it looks amazing. The variation of the chest bursting scene with Rapace perforing an abortion on herself is gripping if not very logical. If Ridley Scott had gotten his head out of his backside and realised he was making a "discover nasty alien"movie and just concentrated on making the best one he good then he was in with a chance. But I think they waffled too much about what sort of film they were doing, shying away from being too Alien-like, and so instead of giving pulpy material A-grade treatment, they gave waffly material pulp treatment, with swishy visuals and effects. Did Walter Hill or David Giler have anything to do with this? If not, it's a bit cheeky for them to be credited as producers.
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