Prometheus (2012) Review

Crew
Ridley Scott - Director
Damon Lindelof - Writer
Jon Spaihts - Writer

Cast
Noomi Rapace - Dr. Elizabeth Shaw
Michael Fassbender - David8
Charlize Theron - Meredith Vickers
Idris Elba - Captain Janek
Guy Pearce - Peter Weyland
Logan Marshal-Green - Charlie Holloway
Sean Harris - Fifield
Rafe Spall - Millburn
Emun Elliott - Chance
Benedict Wong - Ravel
Kate Dickie - Ford

WARNING!
If you want to read a spoiler-free review, visit fellow blogger Gregg's review on the movie here. My review will contain spoilers so if you want to see it yourself first, come back to my review later.

I actually found this movie to be extremely engaging and fun the entire time. I have heard some say they got bored in between the blood letting. I have also hear some say that it had too much buildup before things started getting scary. I disagree with this. I found it all to be wonderfully constructed development. I personally loved how the movie did not give us all the answers as well, which happens to be one of the biggest complaints of the film. But provided it gets the sequel it is aiming for, these things will be revealed. The movie was over 2 hours long and I left the theater wishing it was 3 hours long. The complaints I have been hearing have been almost exclusively from fans of the Alien franchise. I personally was never a hardcore fan of the franchise, far too scary for me when I was a tot. But I did watch the films a few years ago and found the first two enjoyable. That said, I barely remember the films so I went into this movie with the thought that it was connected to another film that I do not really remember and I had slightly high expectations. Those expectations were exceeded and then some.

I loved the pacing of the movie. The cinematography was amazing. It was some of the best CGI I have seen and it was seamless with the rest of the movie. The locations selected for the movie were gorgeous and memorable, the movie had a rock star casting and almost everyone performed phenomenally. This movie does tie into the Alien movie. It explains the "space jockey" we see in the 1979 film. But one thing people need to understand is that the Alien film and the Prometheus film take place on 2 different places. Prometheus takes place on the moon LV-223 while the Alien movie starts out on planetoid LV-426. They are not directly connected in the sense that one leads into the other. Prometheus predated the events of Alien by about 30 years.

Some of the things I want to talk about are the questions and theories I have about the movie.

1. Did the Engineers create the xenomorph species as a means to cleans an experiment or as a superior experiment to humanity?
2. Was the Engineer at the end of the film infected by the xenomorph parasite? Because his armor was not a suit like it was with the other Engineers we see throughout the film. It was clearly part of his body.
3. Why did they want to destroy humanity just 2,000 years ago when there is evidence of their involvement with humanity as far back as 35,000 years ago as well as implied scenes that they seeded Earth with all of its life?
4. Why did the Engineer at the end of the movie kill his fellow Engineers in the holo-recordings?
5. Why did the Engineer at the end not kill humanity 2,000 years ago and instead went into stasis?
6. Why did the rest of the species not carry out the mission of destroying humanity when they had no word from their military lab that the mission was or was not a success? 
7. Did the Engineers seed other planets? Is that why there were thousands of vials of the xenoparasite?

These are just some of the questions that I would like to have answered. I believe they will be answered in the sequel, assuming it happens but as of right now, they are fun to think over and try to come up with my own explanations.

Overall I was extremely satisfied with the movie. I will give this movie a 4.8/5. It is well worth your money. As a matter of a fact, I want to see it again and that almost never happens with me and the theater experience outside of maybe Avengers. Some said it lacked the suspense of the Alien film but so what? It is not the same movie. It breaks new ground in the franchise and does not even deal with the xenomorph that we see in the first Alien movie. The only reason this movie was not just flat out perfect was because the campy "Let's go get that alien bastard American style!" type scene at the end when Janek and his pilots decide to crash into the Engineer's ship with to the tune of some adventurous music. It seemed a little overdone to me but it in no way ruined the movie for me.

Underworld: Awakening

Directed by: Mans Marlind, Bjorn Stein
Written by: Allison Burnett, Kevin Grevioux

Cast
Kate Beckinsale - Selene
Michael Ealy - Detective Sebastian
India Eisley - Eve
Stephen Rae - Dr. Jacob Lane

Review
As a person that never was that impressed with the Underworld franchise, I can say without a shadow of a doubt in my mind that this movie was utterly terrible. It was messy, inconsistent, unrealistic, it lacked depth and it was entirely too impressed with itself.

I suppose we should start with the plot, such as it is. It starts with Kate giving us the backstory from the previous movies with flashbacks. This small section of the film actually had the most engaging story out of the entire film. Once we are caught up, we see that now the government has become aware of both the vampires and the lycans and has taken to systematically wiping them out. What?! Yes the idea that the government will raid your house and flat out murder people in the streets in inhumane ways is completely plausible. Not only is the action taken by the government outrageous, but the fact that they are somehow magically armed with all the necessary weaponry and tactics needed to put the vampires and lycans down with extreme prejudice is outrageous as well.

Okay then we have Selene, who is supposed to be the most powerful vampire alive but she cannot even settle on when she wants to use her super human speed and when she wants to be just barely faster than everyone else. This is a thing throughout the entire film. Anyway she survives a military attack and then goes to find Michael (her love interest played by Scott Speedman) who promptly gets shot with ease and he falls to his death in the bay. She dives in after him and the humans drop a light grenade in on both of them and she wakes up 12 years later in some cryogenic chamber. She breaks out (and this is my favorite part) her leather outfit is just waiting for her to pluck from laboratory shelves. In fact, her leather outfit is sitting in front of the chemicals in this lab. One wonders what those scientists were doing if her leather outfit was more of a priority to them than the chemicals used to keep her asleep. Maybe that lent to her escape?

So she gets out, goes back searching for Michael but instead finds Subject 2, her daughter. Whoa! Total shocker right there. Anyway, the movie goes on sort of randomly and we get some semblance of a plot but mostly it seems like it was written by a child.

The CGI was honestly the best part of the movie and it did have plenty of action. But it is hard to enjoy the action when literally everything else about the movie sucked so terribly. The acting was paper thin. It seemed like Kate was phoning in her performance this time around, which is funny because she never portrayed Selene as a particularly deep character to begin with. The constant "badass" moments honestly had me rolling my eyes less than half an hour into the movie and not even half way through the film, I was looking at my watch and trying to estimate how much more I had to endure.

I did like that the cast had fairly unfamiliar faces. I usually can appreciate when lesser known actors get major roles in big budget films. But no one stole the show. There was no stand out performances. Usually in this situation where there is a strong cast, I lay the blame at the director's feet but since most of these actors I have never even heard of, I honestly cannot say for sure if the director sucks or if the actors should look for day jobs. The "touching" scenes between Selene and her daughter were awkward and embarrassing to watch and even though the action was the best part of the film, I think it was still a little over the top, such as when Eve rips a lycan's head in half and it peels like a banana.

I have spent a great deal of time bashing this film but in reality, it could have been worse. It certainly was not the worst film I have ever seen. But it most certainly will be the worst one I have seen for 2012. Do not see this movie. I saw it for free and I felt like something was stolen from me. This is only a film a diehard Underworld fan would enjoy and even then, maybe not. The picture below is the only decent part of the movie.

I give this film a 1.8/5. Don't waste your time or money. Convince Screen Gems to do better by not supporting this film. Honestly the only way I will ever happen across this movie again is if it is included in the box set with the other movies I actually find to be okay films. And I still will not watch it again.

The Avengers!

Okay I have to admit right off the bat that this movie is not the best movie ever. But that said, I absolutely cannot praise this movie enough. It is far and away my favorite comic book movie (or CBM). Joss Whedon is a spectacular director and it really could not have been done better by anyone else. It is not an overly complex movie and it really is not necessary to watch the 5 movies that set  it up to enjoy this film. I personally did watch all 5 movies beforehand and all it did was increase the enjoyment.

The CGI is stunning and very realistic. Never was there a scene where I was pulled from the movie due to crappy CGI. Usually this is a problem for me with CGI. I can tell Marvel had a lot of faith in this film. All the characters are well respected in this film. Everyone seems to get equal face time. The humor in this film is pretty much what you can expect from Whedon. Wry wit with a bit of slapstick, it is hard to find better quips than what you get from Whedon. If you like comedy, then banter from Iron Man will be the highlight of the movie for you. The choreography for the actions scenes is spectacular and it is clear that Whedon was not overwhelmed by it in the slightest. Very easy to follow and enjoy.

Anyone that knows Whedon's work knows that he has a great love for strong women and that is still true for this movie. Black Widow and to a lesser extent, Maria Hill get the Whedon Women treatment. Anyone who is a fan of Widow either from the comics or from Iron Man 2 will love her here. Source material is respected as well as well as plenty of nods to the fans. Amazingly, Loki does not steal the show a second time around. Though he is one of my favorite characters here. That goes to either Iron Man or Hulk.

My only gripes with the movie are that at the end, I wanted so much more and I felt that Captain America could have used more wow feats. Not that it did not give plenty but I felt it was too short at 147 minutes. And Captain America was given his dues here. I just wanted to see the upper limits of his enhanced abilities. But these are very minor complaints from a fanboy of the comics and they in no way took away from the movie experience. But I have full confidence that this will be explored more in Avengers 2. I also felt a bit underwhelmed by Banner, played by Mark Ruffalo. He did a fine job but honestly, I just would have preferred Edward Norton's take on Banner. There are strong differences in the portrayals and my personal preference just leans more towards Norton.

As for my rating of this film, it is a 4.8/5. A nearly flawless film. If I were to give it a rating based purely on it being a comic book movie, I would say it is a solid 5/5. Go see this movie. Throw all your money at it. And if someone you know says it is not that great, it is your duty to make them watch it again.