It's been a while...

It's been a while but I should have more posts coming up.  

I did write a review for The Avengers recently.   

Upcoming Movies 

When I went to see Prometheus, there was a teaser for Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee (!!)  I was *excited* to see something from Ang Lee- he hasn't had a new movie in years, but I wasn't too impressed  by the teaser.  The teaser features Pi and the tiger stranded at sea when suddenly, a barrage of fish fly into boat, and Pi establishes his dominance over the tiger.  It's a critical scene, for sure, but everything about it seemed off.  The sky and water are too blue, the life boat is too polished looking for having been at sea for ages, and Pi also just felt unnatural.  Everything is too blatant and unsubtle.  

But then again, Life of Pi was about stories.  In my mind, the "real" story of what happened in Life of Pi, is the one Pi tells at the very end- the grim one he goes over quickly where there were no animals, just people, including one extremely aggressive cook.  I hope Ang Lee's approach is to view Life of Pi  through the stories that people tell themselves to cope, instead of the literal and fantastical tale about a boy stuck on a life boat with a tiger.   

Prometheus 

I've been looking forward to Prometheus since I saw the trailer for it.  The trailer is eerie and tense - almost claustrophobic.  While Prometheus doesn't quite deliver on that intense claustrophobia and the eeriness, it's a decent movie.  It's certainly engrossing and I like that it sparks conversation about the Alien universe and back story.  

The visuals are also stunning in this one.  I haven't seen a movie this gorgeous in a while.  I like that for a change (minus Pandora in Avatar), the alien planet they land on isn't just barren rock and gravel, but a mountainous, lush terrain.  The visuals in this movie really are fantastic and probably one of my favorite parts of the movie   

With that being said, one of the weak points of the movie are some of the characters.  This isn't to say that there isn't character development.  There certainly is great character development for quite a few of the characters, but the decisions that most of them make are idiotic, foolish, and unreasonable.  Even though a lot of them are supposed to be intelligent, logically grounded scientists.  Prometheus seriously features some of the worst, dumbest scientists that I've ever seen  depicted on screen (in a serious manner).  

I really wanted to like Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), the protagonist, but found her frustrating.  Shaw along with her boyfriend Charlie Holloway, are the scientists leading the group's expedition to find life.  While I liked that Shaw was a strong female character, it was difficult to buy her as a scientist since she is so dead set on her beliefs.  She's essentially a creationist.         

I usually never root for the antagonists, and while no one is really a villain (there are "monsters" certainly but no real villains), I found myself rooting for the primary two antagonists David (Michael Fassbender) and Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron).  David is an andriod and he is one of the most fascinating characters in the movie.  You're not quite sure of his motives and Fassbender does such a great job portraying David- you never doubt he's an android b/c there's just something un-humanlike about him (he's too calm).  Vickers is probably the most reasonable character in the whole movie.  She has her head in the right place and even though she's brutal, her actions made sense.  Another stand out was Idris Elba (Janek), the ship's captain.  I really wish the movie spent more time on him since he was so much more interesting than the main protagonists Dr. Shaw and Dr. Holloway.  Elba really does a great job making Janek have more development than just a peripheral character.  Janek seems like he has a fascinating backstory- I only wish we got to hear it.

Prometheus doesn't live up to what it promised but it's still a decent movie.  Worth seeing in theaters for the visuals.