Spoilers
[2012-06-17 20:00]
First, minor geeky thrills seeing Idris Elba (who many might recognize as Stringer Bell from The Wire), Kate Dickie (Lysa Arryn from Game of Thrones), Emun Elliott (Marillion from Game of Thrones) and Benedict Wong (whom I recognized from Spy Game -- not a big star, but seeing a fellow Asian on-screen is always a plus). Guy Pearce also appears, but I totally didn't recognize him in his make-up as the old Peter Weyland and forgot he was in the movie.
Acting-wise, I'm pretty happy with what I saw. Michael Fassbender did a stellar job, and Noomi Rapace was pretty good. Story-wise... okay but not great. Which brings me to the bits that I didn't like.
The first time I saw the first Alien movie, I hated it because I kept thinking "These people are all dumb as a box of rocks." The characters' approach and attitude towards an alien spacecraft and alien life-form were incredibly undisciplined, and that made the drama and tension unrealistic and contrived.
When I later understood that the crew of the Nostromo were more like truck drivers than Starfleet officers, and that one of them (the smart one) was a mole, things made more sense and I now enjoy Alien quite a bit.
My reaction to Prometheus was the same as my initial reaction to Alien.
In Aliens, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) says to the Weyland Corporation board: "Did IQs drop sharply while I was away?" Apparently they did because the crew of the Prometheus are scientists and hand-picked for the mission, yet they are still dumb as a box of rocks.
The scene in Prometheus in which the lead archaeologist realizes that the air is breatheable and removes the helmet of his space-suit (oblivious to any other possible dangers) reminds me of a scene from Galaxy Quest when the clueless Fred Kwan (played by Tony Shalhoub) opens the door of the shuttlecraft after they've landed on an alien world.
Similarly, the scene when the biologist sees the alien snake-thing rise out of the primal ooze and decides it's cute reminds me of the scene from Galaxy Quest when Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver) is admonished by Sam Rockwell's character (Guy) for approaching cute-looking aliens. "Didn't you guys ever watch the show?"
Apparently, none of these "specialists" ever learned these lessons either. Oh well. Like my sister observed, it's like watching stupid kids in a slasher movie. You watch them and know, "Yep, they're gonna die."
The second pet peeve of mine is how frequently the Alien franchise breaks the Law of Conservation of Mass. The alien embryo extracted from Shaw's abdomen turns into a 10-foot killing octopus monster by the end of the movie. Where did it get that mass? If it could absorb it from the equipment laying around the medical chamber it was in, why couldn't it absorb it from the floor or door and escape? I suppose you could argue that there was a few hundred kilos of gauze in a storage cupboard in the room and the alien could only eat the gauze, but that seems highly unlikely.
Anyway, I think Rotten Tomatoes is about right in the overall rating. I'd give it about 7.5 stars out of 10 too.