Prometheus (2012): Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce

Prometheus opened with promise yet failed to deliver as a summer blockbuster.   However, the visual effects were astonishing with threads of similarity to the film Avatar's cinematography magic. The movie begins with David, Fassbender, an android, learning languages, playing basketball and living a robotic life on Prometheus, a space ship in the year 2093, while the crew is asleep in oxygen chambers awaiting arrival to a specified destination. The premise follows a team of explorers travelling to the ends of the universe in a quest to uncover the origin of mankind.   Upon reaching the affirmed location on an earth like planet, the space adventurers including Vickers, Theron, Dr. Shaw, Rapace and David venture forth seeking answers.  Of course, since Prometheus, is a prequel to the iconic Alien, thousands of pods are discovered and so the saga repeats with man versus man and man versus aliens.  The script is weak and the character development is minimal and in fact absent.  Of course, there are the usual Hollywood boring tics such as the Halloween effect, throw up scenes and some shocking and implausible moments.  What is missing are the emotional tugs and building excitement from the Alien franchise.  For instance, remember when Ripley, Sigourney Weaver, kicked the mother Alien from here to "kingdom come" after a long back and forth game of cat and mouse.   Or how about the humorous lines from Pvt Hudson, Bill Paxton, in Alien, such as "Game over, man! Game over.  What the f' are we  going to do now? Build a fire? Sing a couple of songs?" Afterwards in the elevator, three Alien science fiction buffs, were discussing loudly and laboriously the arcane symbolism between Prometheus and Alien.   When departing from the elevator, one of them was blithering on about the insane aliens getting out.  As the elevator door shut, a person said, "I think those were the insane aliens!"  A woman replied, "I think you are right!"  Everyone laughed.