Life of Pi

I am a man of peculiar tastes.  I am more than willing to sit through a horrible B-movie to enjoy a single scene, but there are some talented filmmakers out there that I tend to ignore, for no particular reason.  Ang Lee is a good example of this.  I have liked --- or at least been interested by --- every film of his I have seen to date, but when he puts out a new movie, for some reason I do not make an effort to see it.  I do the same thing with Pixar movies, even though I always end up loving them.  Again, in some ways, I am very odd.  
In fact, the only reason I have seen Life of Pi is because I caught a marathon of this year's Best Picture nominees.  There are not a lot of acclaimed films that I have no desire to see, but I will admit that I wasn't looking forward to this one.  So, how wrong was I?

Life of Pi is the story of a guy telling a story to another guy, who will turn the whole thing into a book.  No...strike that.  While technically true, that is merely the framework of this tale --- and I use "tale" for a reason.  This is the impossible story of Pi (Suraj Sharma).  Pi and his family were traveling by ship to Canada (along with their collection of zoo animals) when a freak storm hit and sank the ship, because God hates Canada.  Pi survives the storm and reaches a lifeboat, but his is not the lone survivor.  A wounded zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and Richard Parker (a Bengal tiger) all managed to squeeze into the lifeboat with Pi.

It helps that Pi is 2' tall

Not surprisingly, that status quo doesn't last long; the survivors are quickly reduced to Pi and Richard Parker.  Now, all that Pi needs to do is survive on a lifeboat with a hungry tiger in the middle of the ocean, until he can make it to land.  That may sound like the makings of a claustrophobic action spectacular, but the ocean is a really big place.

Judging from this, it might be a while

The acting in Life of Pi is understated.  Irrfan Khan made for a fine narrator, and his impassive descriptions only emphasized the strangeness of what he described.  Rafe Spall does not do much as the writer who is listening to Adult Pi tell his tale, but he provides as three-dimensional of a character as you're going to get with so few lines in the script; it's not tough work, but he plays his part.  The bulk of the work is done by Suraj Sharma, as Pi in the story.  As the only true character in the film, there is a lot depending on Sharma.  He is not outstanding here, but he was likable.

To put it another way, there is an awful lot of this.

It would be easy to compare this shipwrecked character with that of Tom Hanks' in Cast Away, but this is not a character study, it is essentially a fairy tale and that does not typically lead to outstanding acting.  Still, the camera is almost always on Sharma and the film doesn't suffer for it.  The rest of the cast is barely anything more than a few cameos, culminating in "hey, is that Gérard Depardieu?"  Yes, it is.  And then he's gone.

His last words: "Depardon't do it!"

Life of Pi was directed by Ang Lee, and it shows, although not in a flashy way.  That's not really how Ang Lee movies work.  The cinematography is lovely, the acting is understated, the theme has a bit of psychology to it, and the pacing is...well, a little leisurely.  If you are familiar with Lee's work, all of that is to be expected.  The man is nothing, if not consistent in those regards.  I will admit that I was impressed by just how visually impressive this film was.  You might not expect much to excite your senses with a guy on a boat for 2+ hours, but Life of Pi was surprisingly dazzling.

While this isn't the first time Lee has worked extensively with CGI, I thought the animals and the myriad oddities in the script all looked fantastic.  I liked that the film didn't get over-dramatic or strive for an epic feel.  Ang Lee had a clear idea of what tone would work for this story, and he stuck with it.  A less assured director might have tried to force a more pronounced emotional struggle for the main character, but Lee stuck with the book's subtler plot and it paid off.  I also have to credit Lee for his use of 3D in the film.  It's not splashy, exploitative stuff --- the 3D is used to make the unique visuals more spectacular. 

Which is good, because 3D of floating gets old FAST

Having said all that, Life of Pi was pretty good, but I wasn't thrilled by it.  I feel the same way about a lot of Ang Lee's films, so it might just be me; I can appreciate the man's craftsmanship, but I've never really loved anything he's done.  If I had to give a reason for that, it would be the pacing.  As pretty as this movie was, it never excited me because it always felt like I had at least another hour of the movie left.  This is a well-made and polished movie, but I prefer movies with a bit more flair, even if they are more distinctly flawed.

Yes, I accused this movie of having no flair

Speaking of flaws, I noticed some buzz around this movie, concerning its ending.  I wouldn't really call it a "twist" ending, but I can understand some people feeling that it cheapened the story as a whole.

Like a plot where someone starves, but also sometimes has dozens of fish

Any time you can dismiss a movie by saying "It was all complete bullshit," you run that risk.  Personally, I liked the ending.  I thought it salvaged the entire movie.  Until that point, I was impressed by the technical aspects of the film, but did not particularly care about any of the characters.  The ending is what makes it personal, which provides all of the payoff.  For me, that was enough to make me like (but not love) this movie. 

On a side note, how strange is it that Roger Ebert can make absolutely no mention of the ending of Life of Pi in his 4-star review, but he shat a brick about the ending of The Usual Suspects?  They are, essentially, the same plot device, right?

Brian's Best and Worst of 2012

This is not an end-of-the-year list.  I forfeited that right when I didn't make this at the end of 2012.  I never get the chance to see all the biggest movies of the year in time for the end of the year anyway, so I am continuing my annual tradition of posting my own "best of" just before the Oscars.  That is not because the Oscars (don't call them Academy Awards this year!) are the end-all, be-all of movie awards.  They're just the biggest, and nothing good ever comes out in January or February, so it's okay to still focus on the previous year's releases.

I'm not a Top Ten sorta guy, though.  These are just my personal and highly subjective choices for the best and worst of the year.

What was considered for this list? Obviously, the movies of 2012 that I have already reviewed up to this point.  I do cram in a lot of movies right before the Oscars, too, and am suffering a backlog of recent reviews.  Here's what I watched before coming out with this list:

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  Alex Cross.  The Amazing Spider-Man.  Amour.  Argo.  ATM.  The Avengers.  Battleship.  Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  The Bourne Legacy.  Brave.  The Cabin in the Woods.  Coriolanus.  The Dark Knight Rises.  The Devil Inside.  Django Unchained.  Dredd.  Drew Peterson: Untouchable.  The Expendables 2.  FDR: American Badass.  Flight.  The FP.  Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  Goon.  The Grey.  Haywire.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  The Hunger Games.  Iron Sky.  John Carter.  Lawless.  Les Miserables.  Life of Pi.  Lincoln.  Lockout.  Looper.  Moonrise Kingdom.  Nazis at the Center of the Earth.  Prometheus.  The Raven.  Red Tails.  Resident Evil: Retribution.  Seven Psychopaths.  Silent House.  Silver Linings Playbook.  Skyfall.  Total Recall (2012).  Underworld: Awakening.  V/H/S.  The Woman in Black.  Zero Dark Thirty.

Best Bit Character
While Michael Fassbender's charming/bad-ass turn in Haywire shouldn't be ignored --- he would make a good 007 if we were in the market for a new one --- nothing amused me as much as Jason Schwartzman in Moonrise Kingdom.  A lot of actors (okay, maybe not Bill Murray) merely play "dry" when working with Wes Anderson, but Schwartzman embraces the dry humor with just enough excitement to make him stand out, even in the most star-studded cast.

This needs to be a mass-produced Halloween costume

Worst Supporting Actress
There were some pretty good possibilities in this category in 2012.  Catherine Dent was noticeably bad in the noticeably bad Drew Peterson: Untouchable.  Perhaps one of the lovely ladies from Battleship?  No, I'm going to have to go with Bingbing Li in Resident Evil: Retribution.  She was so bad that all of her dialogue was redubbed.  In a Resident Evil movie, a franchise famous for not giving a crap about acting or coherence.  Ouch.

But hey, she can do...this.  That's something.

Best Supporting Actress
Look, I know that Anne Hathaway is going to win everything for Les Miserables.  And maybe she should; she was good in a I'm-singing-at-the-camera sort of way.  That's not my style, though.  That's why my favorite this year was Judi Dench in Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  It's been a while since I've seen Dench play anything but a cold-hearted bureaucrat, and it was a pleasure to watch her in a warm, relatable role.  Definitely the best part of a quality ensemble cast.

Promo for M: Lost in Delhi

Worst Supporting Actor
This was a tough one.  I seriously hated a lot of supporting actors this year.  50% of the enormous cast from V/H/S were annoying douchebags.  The Ionut Grama was annoying in the truly awful The Devil Inside.  And how about Frank Grillo as the jackass who bitches about everything and fixes nothing in The Grey?  All are compelling choices, but I have to go with someone who has been irritating me for most of the year: Rafe Spall as the world's stupidest biologist in Prometheus.

You see a creepy alien and you smile and get close?  Death is too good for you, sir.

Best Supporting Actor
There were a lot of supporting actor roles that I loved from the past year: Javier Bardem in Skyfall, Sam Rockwell in Seven Psychopaths, Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises, Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln, CGI Hulk from The Avengers, Michael Fassbender in Prometheus, etc.  The runner-up is definitely Fran Kranz as the best stoner in movie history in Cabin in the Woods.  As good as all those guys were this year, I can't overlook just how much I enjoyed Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained.  Is the role similar to his character from Inglorious Basterds?  To an extent, although I would argue switching the good/bad dynamic makes it different enough.  I just can't get over Waltz speaking Tarantino's dialogue, though --- they're so damn good together!

You're welcome.  Next round's on you.

Worst Actress
I'm going to go with the tough-as-nails Gina Coreno in Haywire for this one.  What makes her worse than any of the lead actresses wearing tight leather and shooting stuff this year?  Coreno had some amazing fight scenes in Haywire, but the movie didn't work because she gave an awful performance, even with the benefit of a good director.  If she was even halfway competent, she would have been on my shortlist for Best Actress.  THAT's how bad she is.

Example: I'm pretty sure this scene was supposed to be all dialogue

Best Actress
This one was easy.  Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games Silver Linings Playbook.  She carried that movie, and she wasn't even the main character.  She was funny, had levels and development, and showed some heart?  Come on!  What's not to love?  Besides, what are the other choices this year?  Jessica Chastain?  Ugh.  Pass.  This is the second time I've given this completely nonexistent and useless award to Lawrence, and it's getting to the point where I might actually watch movies because I have faith in the starring actress.  That's a big deal.

I like the scenes where Bradley Cooper is blurred best

Worst Actor
For as many bad movies as I watched this year, there were not many lead acting roles that I absolutely hated.  Sure, Rob Lowe was hilariously bad in his SNL-sketch-gone-horribly-wrong portrayal of a Chicagoan in Drew Peterson: Untouchable, but at least Lowe outperformed the material.  Taylor Kitsch --- who isn't really a bad actor --- played a role that emphasized all of his shortcomings in Battleship.  When your character is frequently described as being smart or talented, you should probably not come off as a complete moron, even when defeating board game-obsessed aliens.

That had better be your agent on the phone

Best Actor
This was a rough year for outstanding lead actor roles.  Of the nine Best Picture Oscar nods, only three of the films had Best Actor nominations!  I think 2012 was far stronger in the Supporting Actor category than the Lead Actor one.  Yes, Denzel Washington was terrific in Flight.  But the character and actor I would choose to watch or listen to again would be Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln.  I've always liked Lincoln as a historical figure, but Day-Lewis was perfectly cunning and warm; he commanded the screen with a soft voice, stooped posture, and anecdotes where other actors would have gone in a completely different direction.  Making America's (arguably) most legendary President into a human again was rather impressive.

The President apparently disagrees.  Or smells a fart.

Best Director
This is less about who was the best and more about what directors I liked that didn't have huge flaws in their finished products. I love Quentin Tarantino, but Django Unchained needed a damn editor. Cabin in the Woods was great, but Drew Goddard managed to make a great horror movie that was missing scares.  Competence narrows down the field considerably.  While Ben Affleck did a great job with the humor and pacing of Argo, I'm going to go with Sam Mendes and Skyfall.  He made a James Bond movie that was actually a legitimate film!  I don't like it because I'm comparing it to Bond movies --- I like it because it's awesome!  This is the first time anyone has tried to make a James Bond flick with character development, good cinematography and very good acting, and he was still able to film some great action sequences.  Mendes' work is sorely underrated on Skyfall.  Any decent director can make a prestige picture look good; making a series known for corny action and one-liners into an actually good movie in far more difficult.

Worst Director
There are movies that never had a chance of being good, and then there are the blockbusters that failed, in large part due to their direction.  Peter Berg took a stupid concept and did a terrible job with it, and Battleship was the nauseating result.  Timur Bekmambetov did a decent job with his cast, but pieced together a soulless abomination that sucked harder than any Twilight movie: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  The absolute worst direction this year, though, had to be Rob Cohen's work in Alex Cross.  He made a police procedural that was less competent than a third-rate CSI knockoff AND the acting wasn't great AND the editing was occasionally incoherent.  Stick to Vin Diesel movies, Mr. Cohen.

Biggest Disappointment
There were a lot of choices this year, primarily with sequels and reboots, but the one that stuck to me was Prometheus.  It's not bad, but it is intentionally obtuse and refuses to deliver on anything that its shared universe with the Aliens franchise has to offer.  Again, it isn't awful, but I was expecting a hell of a lot more.

These guys?  Seriously --- fuck these guys.

Biggest Surprise 
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the year was me not noticing Joseph Gordon-Levitt's makeup while I was watching Looper, but as far as feature films go, Dredd is the winner.  It should have been bad.  It's a remake of a crappy movie, and it has a lead actor who specializes in not emoting.  And yet, Dredd managed to get its core concept just right.  I was hoping for a movie so-good-it's-bad, but ended up genuinely enjoying it.

...because this is totally sweet

Bottom 5 Movies
5. Iron Sky - How do you screw up a movie about Nazis living on the dark side of the Moon?  By assuming that the concept was funny enough to last for an entire movie.  This one had promise, but then dropped the ball when it tried to be clever, funny, or serious.  So, yeah, it sucks.

Above: my reaction

4. Battleship - I still have trouble understanding how this made it past the conceptual stage.  A board game about stealth transformed into an alien invasion action movie?  The guy who came up with that concept must have balls the size of Death Stars.  Battleship must have run an "obnoxious actors wanted" ad in Variety, too, because the supporting cast is about two peanuts shy of being 100% crap.

John Carter vs. Master Chief?

3. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - I like the source material and the director, and yet this turned out to be an unholy mess.  I am okay with the chocie to not play this concept for laughs.  I am not okay with it feeling like it was 2/3 exposition, 1/3 Abraham Lincoln running on top of a herd of stampeding animals.  Be funny or be darkly awesome.  Anything else is failure.

Get it?  The bad guy's using the horse as a pommel --- you know what?  Screw this movie.

2. The Devil Inside - Possession horror movies are oftentimes terrible.  With the advent of the found-footage horror sub-genre, possession movies have gotten a little worse.  The Devil Inside has a lame concept, irrational characters, and poor direction; none of those earmark it for being hate-worthy.  What separates it from the pack is its ending.  This is the worst film ending I have seen since the director's cut of The Butterfly Effect.  I only wish The Devil Inside strangled Ashton Kutcher, too.

This for ninety minutes would have made for a better film

1. ATM - This is the single dumbest concept for a film I have seen in a long time --- and I watched FDR: American Badass and Nazis From the Center of the Earth this year.  There are no redeeming qualities with this film, and then it gave me a nosebleed by inferring that the villain --- who had the most unbelievably idiotic victims I have ever seen on film --- was some sort of criminal mastermind.  Crap...I'm bleeding out my eyes now, just thinking about it.

They're looking at the world's largest bottle of scotch, AKA what you need to get through this movie

Top 10 Movies:
10. Lincoln - I absolutely love Daniel Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones in this film.  My biggest concern was how it would handle the whole "vampire hunter" angle, but I think Spielberg addressed the issue subtly.

9. Seven Psychopaths - Not a perfect movie by any means, but I adore the dialogue and I thought the supporting cast was stellar.  There are not many scripts that give Sam Rockwell license to be as crazy as he can be, but he was so odd that Christopher Walken looked...well, not normal, but sane by comparison.

8. Looper - I was concerned when this movie was being advertised.  Not only did it have a weird time travel concept at its core, but it contended that the Future Mob had sole control over time travel.  Add that to the incomprehensible choice to cover Joseph Gordon-Levitt's face in silly putty to look absolutely nothing like a young Bruce Willis, and this looked like a movie destined for the "mock" pile.  Looper surprised me, though.  It made some interesting and tough choices with its characters and delivered a movie intriguing enough for me to stop focusing on JGL's makeup.

Clever fan poster found on the Looper tumblr

7. Beasts of the Southern Wild - When you take semi-Artsy direction and some of the rawest acting talent around, you run a chance of creating something truly special.  This was easily the Academy Award-nominated film that I connected to best on an emotional level, and I am so disassociated with these characters that I cannot believe I live in the same country where it was shot.  And the editing and post-production work needed to make 6 year-old Quvenzhané Wallis this great was beyond impressive.

6. Argo - It is difficult to make a movie about a historical event suspenseful.  It's almost as hard to pace it well.  Ben Affleck managed to do both, and he still balanced it with humor.

This guy says he was in Argo.  I don't recall, but it's an awesome pic

5. The Dark Knight Rises - A fitting end to Christopher Nolan's trilogy, this was everything needed to thematically bring Batman's story to a close.  Bane was not quite as classic as Heath Ledger's Joker, but Tom Hardy was good enough to make me forget about the Joker while I was watching --- and that is damn impressive.  If this had more Batman and less Bruce Wayne, it might have been perfect.  It will tide me over until the next reboot (I'm calling 2017 right now).

4. The Cabin in the Woods - This was such a fantastic homage to the horror genre that I can overlook the fact that it is not scary in the least bit.  A smart script that goes in directions that you would not guess from the promos and a great script make this a personal favorite.

This movie also finally gives stoners their own action hero

3. The Avengers - I'm a huge fan of the Marvel super hero movies, so the one where all the heroes team up and are directed by Joss Whedon, with a script he co-wrote?  Yeah, this was a no-brainer.  What makes it special, though, are the unexpectedly great moments, like when Hulk smashes Loki.  More of this, please.

Do you have this poster?  It was free w/purchase of the Blu-Ray.  FYI.

2. Skyfall - This is easily the best James Bond movie since Connery got bored with the role.  It has the best direction and cinematography of any Bond movie, and the best villain in decades.  This is the James Bond movie to show to people who (somehow) don't like James Bond.

Fan art poster taken from here

1. Django Unchained- Yes, it could have been better with thirty minutes less run-time, but Django scratched so many itches that this year's film crop failed to.  It was gory as hell, it had Tarantino's famously foul humor, and universally good acting.  There were a few movies about slavery in 2012, but this was the film that was fun to watch and I will come back to time and time again.  Bless your enormous chin (which houses your ego), Quentin Tarantino!

Sorry.  This was better than any Django posters I could find

Prometheus

Typically, when I see a movie, I jot down some thoughts and will probably blog it within a few days.  Unless I'm being lazy, which has been known to happen from time to time.  With Prometheus, though, I had a different problem.  I just wasn't sure how I felt about it.  So, I pondered and pondered, making sure to stay off the interwebs and work it out in my noggin.  The more I thought about Ridley Scott's kinda-sorta-not-really prequel to Alien, though, the more I realized that my take on the movie didn't fit my traditional review format.  So, first up is this review.  My next post will be "Prometheus: What the Hell Was That?" and I will try to explain what confused me so much about this film.

Prometheus is, at its core, the story of Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), and their quest for answers.  Shaw and Holloway are romantically-entwined archaeologists, and they have found the same star constellation in the primitive artwork of several ancient civilizations, separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles. 

"Is that...somebody playing jai-alai?"

That wouldn't be a big deal if the constellation was the Big Dipper, but this particular constellation is not visible with the naked eye.  In fact, human technology had to expand to an advanced degree before discovering it.  That fact, coupled with the inexplicable coincidence of societies that had no contact sharing the same image in their artwork, leads them to conclude that the constellation is a map.  A map to where, you may ask?  A map to a planet where humanity's predecessors (dubbed "Engineers" by Shaw and Holloway) came from --- humanity's cradle, if you will.  Their theory intrigues the aging corporate magnate Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) and he funds a space voyage (on the ship Prometheus) to investigate the planet.  Once the crew arrives, however, they find a barren world with only one empty base.  Well, maybe not exactly "empty."

Giant statue head with made-to-scale aspirin tablet statues

They also find a corpse of what they presume to be an Engineer.  But what could wipe out the Engineers?  Why did they come to Earth in the first place?  Can we still find out where humanity came from?  The last two questions, while good, are not nearly as important as the first. 

That looks vaguely familiar, doesn't it?

When you consider that question, the natural follow-up is this: how likely is the survival of a group who doesn't know what they are up against?  Hint: not very.  With every passing minute on this planet, it feels less and less like the cradle of humanity and more like a tomb.

Now, if you've seen the film and are wondering where all the buff Powder clones are, that's what I'm going to get into with "Prometheus: What the Hell Was That?"

While my synopsis may not indicate it, there are actually more than a couple of actors in Prometheus.  Noomi Rapace was good as the innocent who has to get tough, but she wasn't great.  I wanted to like her character more, but wound up being distracted by some other plot elements instead.  I will say that she conveyed pain and fear better than anyone else in the cast, at the very least.  Oh, and if you have any fears about pregnancy, she's in a scene that you may not want to watch.  Ever.

Logan Marshall-Green was a lot less sympathetic.  He did a fine job playing an overconfident prick, but I think that his character was intended for more, given the amount of quality screen time he had.  I did like Idris Elba as the captain of the Prometheus.  It was odd seeing a captain play such a passive role in a sci-fi flick, but I enjoyed his laid-back approach.  I would have liked to see more of his character, but he did a good job with what he had and his choices at the end of the film didn't feel completely out of left field.

The rest of his core crew --- Benedict Wong, Emun Elliott, and a few others --- were inconsequential to the overall acting quality of the film.  The character design for Sean Harris was a bit unusual for a geologist.  I expected him to be a guard or something, but he was a scientist.  So...there's that.

Sometimes, even smart people get tattoos on their head

Rafe Spall's character was similarly odd.  He plays a biologist who shows zero interest in a dead alien and later acts like a complete jackass when encountering a new species.  Worst.  Biologist.  Ever.  I wasn't a big fan of either of those two.  Charlize Theron played a cold, calculating bitch in the background of scenes; I don't think Theron did a bad job acting here (her reaction post-flamethrower was pretty good), but her character felt like a waste of space to me, another bit of misdirection in a film jam-packed with it.  I have no idea why Guy Pearce was cast to play the elderly Peter Weyland; Pearce was fine and his makeup was good, but why cast a young man as an older man if you're not going to show him as a youth?  And, no, I don't count viral marketing as a good enough reason.  Maybe this means that Pearce will be showing up in a planned seuqel/prequel to Prometheus?  Whatever, it's not too important.  Similarly, I was surprised to see Patrick Wilson playing the incredibly bit part of Shaw's father in her dreams.  The most impressive actor in Prometheus, though, was definitely Michael Fassbender.  His work as the android David was fantastic.

Dare I say..."Fasstastic"?  No, probably not.

It takes a lot to play a character supposedly devoid of emotion and make him absolutely mesmerizing in every scene, but Fassbender accomplished it.  He was cold, manipulative and sneaky, but he didn't remind me of the other android characters from the Alien series; his character felt very unique.  He also had a viral ad that was pretty good, but it doesn't even hint at how much fun he was to watch as a quasi-villain.

The first thing I think of when I ponder Ridley Scott's direction in Prometheus is how incredibly gorgeous the movie looks.  The cinematography is sometimes breathtaking, the sets are impressive in both size and style, and the details of the Prometheus ship technology and the Engineer base are well beyond cool.  The imaginative visuals in this movie make it one of the most visually astounding science fiction films I have ever seen.

I'm not always an IMAX guy, but this looked amazing in IMAX

Scott obviously had a pretty good relationship with Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender, as they turned in good performances, but I was a little disappointed in the rest of the supporting cast.  There are a lot of characters in this film that make important decisions, but I felt that Scott made them seem more important to the overall story than they were, which made them feel overvalued and underdeveloped. 

Example number one

I wouldn't have minded that so terribly if the film wasn't so packed with subtext.  Prometheus is a dense movie that does not stop to explain itself to the likes of you, the audience, or hint at what details are going to be important later.  On the one hand, I respect that choice; more often than not, films err on the side of over-explaining themselves.  Prometheus, though, is absolutely unapologetically confusing.  Scott definitely gives enough hints to read into his intentions, but the fact that I feel compelled to write another blog post about those intentions should indicate that his storytelling is not as taut or clear as it could have been.

That's really the problem with Prometheus.  It has one truly impressive performance (Fassbender) and a good secondary performance (Rapace), a wonderfully developed universe, and an ambitious concept (humans seeking their makers).  What it doesn't have is good storytelling.  There are a few reveals in this film, but they are predictable and dull.  And then there is a twist, which is astounding because it appears to have no motivation.  For the first two-thirds of Prometheus, it is a slow-boiling sci-fi thriller with somewhat pretentious themes, and it looks like it's going to be great.  And then it suddenly becomes a horror movie, complete with psycho killers and monsters.  That just felt cheap to me.  I also didn't appreciate the bushels of questions (that is the proper term of measurement for questions, by the way) I was left with when the film finished.  Granted, it did get me to ponder the film for an entire week after seeing it --- which is quite a feat --- but I was left unsatisfied.  Prometheus is absolutely gorgeous and ambitious, it handles the creation of mankind so well that the existence of an alien Engineer race doesn't preclude the existence of God, and it is very, very impressive.  It is also purposefully obtuse and frustrating.  As much as I wanted to be blown away by this movie, the story and the unexplained subtext disappointed me.  Still, it is certainly worth seeing, if only for the spectacle and Fassbender.

By the by, I wanted to call out prometheus-movie.com as the source for all the cool pics I included in this post.  I don't know who's in charge of that site, but they are definitely the web's singular resource for all things --- pics, details, theories, whatever --- Prometheus.  And they appear to be pretty bright; after I jotted down my interpretations of what happened in this movie in my follow-up post, I went back to compare my take with theirs and I learned a few things.