Don’t be too taken aback by Dom Nero‘s “It’s Time To Redeem Prometheus,” which appeared in the 9.1 edition of Esquire. He calls it a “masterpiece.” He’s closer to the truth than you think. Give the film another look if you don’t believe me.
Since its release, “Prometheus” has taken a rather harsh beating from the film community, but why? Yes, it was promoted as Ridley Scott’s return to the “Alien” franchise, which he created back in 1979, but what we got instead was a heady, richly-detailed and incredibly thoughtful movie about humanity, not the slasher film in space that most people wanted.
Many of the great movies of our time were initially received with lukewarm reviews before being embraced much later down the road. Most of them were a victim of audiences going in expecting a whole other movie than they got. Your brain prepares you for one thing and then you get the complete opposite. It’s all part of human nature and the way we are wired. Stanley Kubrick’s films were victims of this phenomenon, time and time again, with almost every movie he released being unfairly dismissed at first. I’m not saying “Prometheus” is one of “the great movies of our time,” but it’s a tremendously bold and satisfying statement from a great director. After all, what Scott tried to do with this film was tackle the biggest question in all of humanity’s history; the meaning of our existence.
In my 2012 review of “Prometheus” I wrote “think of it as “The Tree Of Life” for the summer blockbuster crowd.” I stand by that. Of course, it can’t and should not be compared Terrence Malick's masterpiece. A part of the bewildering reaction to the film was because the vast amount of questions it asked during its 124 minute runtime could not be answered, that surely infuriated many, but the ambition in “Prometheus” was damn-near staggering for a summer blockbuster. It still is.