Only human

Stuart really wanted to see Prometheus and it's apparently being pulled from theaters after a very short run, so we made a point of going out to see it last night. And now I understand why it's had a short run. I love sci fi, I really like Ridley Scott's movies, I even have a certain esthetic appreciation of the incomprehensible, but this movie was two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

What was so disappointing, you ask? I had no engagement with the characters at all: didn't sympathize with them, didn't hate them, honestly couldn't be bothered to care. I felt a mild happiness that Charlize Theron's character didn't get away, but other than that, meh. No character development, hell - most of the time I was a bit lost on motivation. People did things, but either for painfully banal reasons or because if they didn't, the movie would stop.  The pacing... well, it wasn't.  It felt like the whole movie scrolled passed at one speed, regardless of whether it was a fight scene or a love scene or a philosophical discussion. There was no development of themes - I could see snippets of them here and there but none of them was satisfactorily expanded upon.  Most of the science was either missing or bad.

In some ways, it felt like a two hour prologue - it raised a million questions and only managed to answer one that I didn't even know I had.  

SPOILER ALERT: I hadn't really heard anything about the movie in advance, so I didn't realize that there was any connection with the Alien movies.  Imagine my surprise when in the last 15 seconds, I was suddenly aware that the whole thing was in fact the genesis of the Alien species. And instead of thinking "Cool!"; all that went through my mind was "Really? All of that, for this?"

At least Avatar had the grace to be beautiful eye candy.  This movie was unrelentingly grey and bleak. It sets itself up for a sequel, but I can't be bothered to care whether it will ever get made. I have no idea if this was a failure of Scott's or studio interference or what, but it was definitely a failure.  There will be no elevation to godhood from this.