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chris kilby -> RE: Prometheus review (1/6/2012 10:25:32 AM)
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The reviews I've seen so far all suggest the critics wanted to love this one but have been mildly disappointed - I don't doubt for one second that similarly disappointed fanboys will react in the same dignified and restrained manner...
EMPIRE so desperately wanted to give Prometheus more than a perfectly acceptable three stars (while maybe thinking it deserved less?) it clearly hurt. That's always the trouble with unrealistically sky-high expectations - nothing can ever live up to them. Just look at The Phantom Menace! Though not, I hope, The Dark Knight Rises...
Which is why I always hope for the best but expect the worst and lower my expectations accordingly - a pessimist can never be disappointed you see, only pleasantly surprised. Besides, it's only a movie. No need to Hulk out about it no matter how disappointed you were. I simply don't understand why people get so wound up about these things. Or why people online are so angry all the time. It's very sad. And more than a bit worrying. Angry. Angry young men. No wonder there are riots.
I think another problem here is that a lot of people often review films on the basis of what they were expecting not what's actually on screen. Irate fanboys do this all the time. (Which is why it often sounds like they're rating/slating a different movie from everyone else cos they're comparing it to the fanfic version unspooling in their heads. Fanboys are nothing if not solipsistic!) But even professional critics aren't immune to this.
What's interesting about Prometheus has been Ridley Scott's curious reticence to confirm or deny that it actually is an Alien prequel. Not having seen it yet, it would appear that it is and it isn't. It is in that, well, it is - it is about the "Space Jockeys" after all. (Isn't it?) But it isn't in that, well, it's about the Space Jockeys. Like Ridley Scott said a prequel would be as far back as an interview he gave in Starburst in 1980! (The same way George Lucas said in a 1985 interview in the same magazine that any Star Wars prequels would be different from the original trilogy - "more of a mystery," he said - and therefore wouldn't be as popular with the fans. Maybe he's psychic...)
I suspect that, sly old dog that he is, Sir Ridley was wisely hedging his bets cos he knew this probably meant an Alien prequel without the requisite acid-dripping, chest-bursting action we've all come to expect. While obviously a gamble, this is part of the reason I've been looking forward to seeing Prometheus since I read that Starburst interview when I was a kid - precisely because it's trying to be something different and not some tired, clapped-out AVP mash-up aimed at morons with ADHD. For all their obvious flaws, I enjoyed the Star Wars prequels for the same reason. And, yes, I do realise that one way or another I may have to eat these words after I've actually seen Prometheus.
Another thing is people and perceptions change over time - normal people, I mean, not fanboys. Look how Blade Runner's reputation has improved over the last 30 years when ALL the critics hated it in '82 - I was there, in an empty cinema with my dad, and I loved it! (He didn't.) Also, I was bemused to see EMPIRE slag off Braveheart a while back when I seem to remember it was "Team EMPIRE's" film of the year in 1995 - whoops! So it doesn't really matter in the long run what anyone thinks of a film on its release. It's posterity which will ultimately decide if Prometheus is any good or not. Only the good stuff endures/gets the BD boxset treatment!
As for this curious obsession some uptight people have with reviews and star ratings (why? We all know what opinions are like!) EMPIRE should only ever give out 5 star reviews. Like Baz Bamigboye at the Daily Maul. (I dunno - maybe he just likes seeing his name on the poster...)
PS: That line about Jason Statham nearly made me bust a gut. Or burst a chest!
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