I saw Prometheus yesterday, which is best described as being set in the world of Alien but not a direct sequel or prequel to the movie. It's best to think of this like the Dark Horse comic series of books put out around the time the Alien franchise was popular. It's set in the same world and deals with similar elements, but this is different.

The movie takes place many years before the first Alien and, thanks to some quick research I was able to correct myself, doesn't take place on the same planet as the Nostromo found itself on. It's the same naming combination, but definitely not the same planet.

The easiest way to describe the film is to relate what I heard at the very end of the movie. The credits were rolling and this guy behind me was talking to a group of his friends. He was the prime audience for this movie; male in his mid 20s. At the credits rolled he said, with no hint of irony, “Oh, I get it! Those were the guys who designed the Aliens.” Another one chimed, “Yeah, I thought so.”

Maybe if you were born in the mid 90s and never saw or heard of the film Alien or its sequels, and maybe if you were so cut off from the promotion of this movie you didn't know it was directed by same person who did the original Alien, Ridley Scott. Maybe if you never saw the host of other promotional announcements that this was in the Alien universe I could figure someone not knowing that bit of information. To sit through the whole movie and not get where it was set until the very end is very sad. That being said Prometheus was made for that gentleman who was behind me, and that is what bugged me so much about this movie.

This movie had an air of wanting to be the thinking person's movie, maybe not 2001: A Space Odyssey levels but it was shooting for something well beyond Transformers and The Avengers. No doubt it wanted to recapture the feel of the original Alien. It starts off well, but as the story unfolded, there were little cracks that suggested convenient plot devices rather than a natural progression of the story. There were forced foreshadowing of things that would be critical to making the ending 'work' which in the context of the flow of the story didn't make sense. It reminded me of a James Bond movie when he goes and sees Q, and Q gives him a device that can only work once, has only one real function and isn't practical for anything else, and during the mission, when all seems lost, there is only one way out of the danger and the device Q gave him, the one with only one purpose, is the one thing at that moment that can save him.

Not to give anything away, but there is a medical device in the film, something so rare they make a point in saying there are only five that have ever been built. This device isn't on the ship to service the crew. It is locked away in a pretty inaccessible location. The scene where you first see the device makes it very clear it is rare, it's tucked away in a code key location, and not for anyone. So, of course, at the critical time in the movie, where the heroine is 'hurt' and is considered a threat (the ship kind of goes into lock-down at this point) she is able to escape from the regular quarantined hospital area of the ship, make her way down winding hallways, get herself to th secure location, key in the code to open the door (remember, this is a secure location so why would she have the code to what is essentially a private area) then has the code to open the other door where the device is located. Add to this, it was established the device is rare, only 5 made, yet the heroine is able to not only activate the device but able to override it's previous programming ( which actually reveals another clue to a misdirection the writers have given us) to perform the needed operation.

To me, this film felt like it started out being an intelligent movie, then someone along the way thought about the guy behind me in the theater and said “We better bring things down so that guy can understand it” and as they did the movie got dumber, more obvious and confusing all at the same time. So, yes, it became another Hollywood mindless blockbuster. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with mindless blockbusters, but Prometheus looked like it was attempting to be something higher before it fell into cliché.

There's still enough of the intelligent part to keep your brain hanging around, but two thirds into the movie smart people are doing stupid things. I have to say the film looks great. This has heavy production value all over it. It gives you the feel of this universe as only Ridley Scott can with science fiction. My problem with the film is with dialog and plot motivations. If Charlize Theron's character was a man, she would have a mustache that she would twirl all the time. That is how one dimensional her character is. I've seen reviews where she has been described as a tough woman, that she is, but being a ball buster and a woman doesn't make for good acting, especially if you have bad dialog. Many of the characters in this film are one dimensional, since most are going to end up dead by the end of the film.

What keeps this film down ultimately is realizing while watching this how many plot points don't add up. There is a completely unnecessary plot point made at the beginning of the movie, kind of confirmed by Charlize Theron's character, then shown to not only be false but Theron's character acknowledges that it's false when the time comes. Once this is done, I was left with thinking two things. Why did you have to lie in the first place when it was of no consequence to the people on the ship? The second question is why would the supposed reason for lying even happen if, from what we were told, the scientist has a theory this planet had the life forms? Even assuming they were right in the calculations and this was the planet, why would it be assumed there would be intelligent lifeforms on the planet that would cause for the lie to be made when there was no hint of the lifeforms being alive? Like I said, you will come up with a lot of questions during this movie that don't make sense.

Prometheus is a great movie to look at, intriguing for the first third of the movie, nagging at the second third, then falls apart at the last third. This is a film that can wait for the DVD release, which will probably be by the end of the year.