Not Blazed Movie Reviews: ‘Prometheus’

K. Thor Jensen Contributing Writer, Entertainment

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20th Century Fox

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get high and watch this movie in good conscience. I know that every week I do you, the readers, a valuable service by getting totally lit up and going to see a movie, then spilling my idiotic thoughts like so much bongwater, but I couldn’t do that with Prometheus.

This is the one movie I’ve been waiting for all summer. Ridley Scott returns (obliquely) to the Alien franchise and everything that they leaked before the flick opened made it look like it was going to be atmospheric and scary and weird and tense and awesome.

You can probably see where I’m going with this, right? Prometheus isn’t very good.

Here’s the basic story: a scientific expedition takes off to follow a mysterious ancient star map to find the “Engineers,” who were the progenitors of all life in the Universe or something. Guess what? Long-dead civilizations are always bad because something killed them. That’s why they’re dead. Of course, there are nasty alien creatures hanging out and they impregnate humans just like you’d expect, and then things get bad for everybody.

The problem with this movie is that it’s a prequel in the worst sense of the word – you spend the entire movie waiting for a xenomorph to show up, and then when one does (in the final shot of the film), it’s kind of a disappointment, because the movie’s over. Prometheus raises more questions than it answers, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but a lot of the film seems like it’s just laying groundwork for a sequel that we’ll never see. What’s the deal with the Engineers? Why did they create humanity just to try to destroy it? You’ll never know! Sorry!

I’m not saying it’s a horrible movie. It’s great to look at, with incredible sets and awesome effects. Michael Fassbinder is amazing as David and if the MTV Movie Awards can make up a category for “Best Robot” he should win it. At this point, I kind of wish I had watched it high. I probably would have enjoyed it more.