Prometheus

To quote one of my favorite South Park episodes: just because something is convoluted does not mean it's smart. You can put as many subplots and layers and twists as possible and still have a dumb movie. Case in point: The Matrix: Revolutions and the Cube movies. Also, visual flair and lots of symbolic imagery does not a philosophical subtext make. But if you're Ridley Scott and you haven't made a noteworthy film in years, maybe all you want is for people to talk. Mission accomplished I guess. When scientists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) find a series of cryptograms that make a map, they think it was left by our creators. So they board the starship Prometheus for a two-year journey to a moon that supports life. Joined by the android David (Michael Fassbender), their corporate sponsor (Charlize Theron), and a host of others, the two are excited to meet their makers. But what they find may not be what anybody was expecting. Prometheus has some of the absolute best CGI ever put on film. The sheer scope and epicness of the effects, especially in 3D, is simply incredible. But it's also sad, as these aesthetic elements turn out to be the only depth Prometheus really has. Sure the film sets up some really cool questions about the mythos and origins of the Alien universe, but it gets lost. The film takes place in a world where everybody has ulterior motives and arbitrary secrets, and by the end it has nowhere to go. Prometheus is a film that ends before answering anything, and I found that frustrating. I mostly blame the flaws of this film on the writing. The script by Damon Lindelof and John Spaihts knows what it's trying to say, but has absolutely no idea how to say it. Very early on the script makes the decision to chuck hundreds of years of evolutionary science and humanist philosophy out the window in favor of an underdeveloped creationist view that doesn't make any sense. There are some things that Prometheus states to us as super innovative and deep that are just completely wrong. I mean, these are mistakes anyone with access to Wikipedia could correct. Directly after seeing this film I began to criticize it. I didn't hate Prometheus, but my Father's Day activity with my dad was making a list of the nonsense. Neither of us could suspend disbelief enough to buy into all the conspiracy theories and pseudoscience the film was shoving down our throats. Prometheus is entertaining, but when films like Inception manage to successfully be both that and layered and smart, I won't cut slack just because it's Ridley Scott. I really tried to love Prometheus, but in reality it's just a beautifully presented empty box.