Prometheus Reviews
Top CriticThe movie may be a scare show that leaves many questions unanswered, but Scott's craft earns an exhausted kind of respect.
Calling Prometheus-or any Ridley Scott movie -- gorgeous is the stingiest of compliments. So let's point out specifics that quicken the pulse.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Prometheus tells a much bigger story and does it well, but it's missing what matters most. It's inorganic.
There's definite mastery here, but it's hardly a masterpiece.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Prometheus--like, in its telling, the human race itself--is a creation spliced from the DNA of superior forebears.
Much like Rutger Hauer's turn as a replicant in Scott's Blade Runner, Fassbender's performance may launch Prometheus into the cult stratosphere.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Ridley Scott means to bring wonder and horror back to summertime spectacle, and Prometheus mostly succeeds in that regard. (Mostly.)
"Prometheus" has the integrity of a serious and sincere attempt, but ultimately it won't please anybody.
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| Original Score: 2/4
With its creepy caves and yawning space, "Prometheus" is on one level a somber dialogue between man the aspirant and man the mortal.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Visually impressive and featuring one or two breakout performances, this anticlimactic exercise too often plays as though it has been cobbled together from archetypes, imagery and tropes from countless other movies.
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| Original Score: 2/4
Prometheus is more interested in piling on big questions than in answering them. It's deep without being particularly smart, although the dazzling design and special effects keep you from noticing that basic flaw until at least an hour in.
When it comes to technical wizardry and sheer visual spectacle, Prometheus unequivocally delivers.
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| Original Score: 3/4
If you have fond, 33-year-old memories of averting your young eyes from a propulsive parasite critter, Prometheus might just be your kind of return trip.
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| Original Score: B+
What resonates in Scott's graceful, grownup, pristine film is its majestic mind.
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| Original Score: 4/5
This tale of an interstellar search asks cosmic questions about the meaning of life, but comes up with lame answers in a script that screams attention-deficit disorder.
The ending isn't squishy scary or deeply satisfying. Bummer. Otherwise, Prometheus kicks ass so hard and often that it's impossible not to be thrilled by it.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Unlike any of the sequels between it and the original, Prometheus is a horror movie first and foremost, gnawing at subconscious terrors even as your conscious mind attempts to bat it away.
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| Original Score: B+
Scott delivers a visually exquisite, unmissable film that demands and deserves to be seen on the biggest screen available. It is also unforgivably stupid.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Narratively, it's a mess. There's a through-line Darwinism vs. creationism thing going on that ping-pongs big religious and philosophical ideas, but whiffs the return.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
I saw Prometheus without my trusty guide-wife next to me to describe the creepy stuff yet watched every second of the movie. And not once did I jump out of my skin.
Making up for the expected nature of some of the film's plot twists is Arthur Max's spooky, H.R. Giger-influenced production design, Dariusz Wolski's fluid cinematography, as well as Scott's moment-to-moment storytelling skill.
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| Original Score: 3/5
The plot of this Alien prequel was a carefully guarded secret -- so carefully guarded, in fact, that not even the movie reveals it.
God (or Alien) knows this movie is derivative. But as someone else once said, originality isn't everything.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Prometheus is a prequel that works as a stand-alone but offers added benefits to those familiar with the Alien series.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Stripped to its visceral essentials, the franchise is meant to frighten us and gross us out, and Prometheus rises to that modest challenge.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
An impressive epic about the extraordinary vastness of the universe, and the immense puniness of us.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Mr. Scott's sense of visual scale, which has often produced hectic, hectoring grandiosity (are you not entertained?), achieves, especially in the first hour, something like genuine grandeur.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
While its vast sets and production values are simply stunning, "Prometheus" ultimately disappoints.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" is a magnificent science-fiction film, all the more intriguing because it raises questions about the origin of human life and doesn't have the answers.
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| Original Score: 4/4
Watching "Prometheus" is like opening a deluxe gift box from Tiffany's to find a mug from the dollar store.
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| Original Score: 2/4
"Prometheus" damn near lives up to the unsustainable hype, at least at the level of cinematography, production design, special effects and pure wow factor.
Prometheus elicits Alien memories for viewers who have them, but works on its own, too, as a model of a contemporary (and, as is the contempo mode, long-winded) sci-fi horror pic.
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| Original Score: B+
"Prometheus" repeats many past glories, and its plot is squishy nonsense. But its grand sets and intricate effects are dazzling, and in at least one scene, Scott almost manages to top himself.
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| Original Score: 3/4
You're more likely to enjoy the film if you go in thinking less about "Alien" and more about Scott, with his emphasis on images, tone and atmosphere over -- sometimes at the expense of -- plot and story.
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| Original Score: 4/5
Why are we here? What is our purpose? Is there a God? When does this movie get good?
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| Original Score: 2/4
This is a remarkably scary and eye-popping headrush of a movie, an experience that offers a maximum adrenaline boost at the same time as it engages your intelligence. Don't miss it.
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| Original Score: 4.5/5
With this overreaching Prometheus, Scott seems a bit like David carefully arranging his hair in imitation of O'Toole's Lawrence. He can still mimic the appearance of an epic, noble, important movie -- but the appearance is all.
There's no denying that Prometheus will make for a perfectly entertaining night at the movies -- but we were promised so much more.
The paranoia becomes palpable, and a lot of its impact comes from how dramatic and dazzlingly seamless the special effects are.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Alien DNA plays a big role in Prometheus, but it's the DNA of Alien that this new movie just can't quite live up to. The less you think of this new film as part of that legendary series, the more you'll enjoy it.
Remains earthbound in narrative terms, forever hinting at the existence of a higher intelligence without evincing much of its own.
It does supply enough visual spectacle, tense action and sticky, slithery monster attacks to hit the spot with thrill-seeking audiences worldwide.
