It's badly written, badly plotted, and a completely unsatisfying prequel to the Alien franchise. All the ideas that are set up are NOT paid off. And if you like science, Prometheus is particularly offensive. It's the worst portrayal of scientists in action for a long time.
But it looks good (particularly the landing sequence), the 3D is a triumph, and it made a fair whack at the box office.
If you don't care about bad science, then it may not offend. Some people don't mind it.

Part of it is expectations too. Both trailers for Prometheus are some of the best cut trailers I've seen in years, and made this look like it would be absolutely fucking amazing and the best movie this year. They hinted at a body-snatchers/the-thing infection type storyline that I was convinced they would use because it seemed perfect for a non-alien horror film in that universe. Suffice it to say, that was really no-where in the movie and what they went with was retarded and lame. And it retro-actively fucked up Alien by giving a horrible back-story for those events. I gotta admit I haven't been that furious and offended by a movie since Terminator Salvation.

This is all the movies I saw in 2012 that were listed on the Box Office Mojo 2012 list, which apparently includes some movies that were released in 2011, but still made money in theaters in 2012 or something? I don't get it, but that's what I went with.

1. Moonrise Kingdom
- I'm a Wes Anderson guy. All felt right with the world for like a week after seeing this.
2. The Raid
3. The Avengers
4. The Innkeepers
- A warm blanket of a film, and maybe the best skeptic's ghost movie ever.
5. Killing Them Softly
- Not as viscerally entertaining as I thought it would be, but the tone of this is SO my thing. I still can't get it out my head.
6. Cabin in the Woods
7. Skyfall
8. Cloud Atlas
9. The Dark Knight Rises
10. Killer Joe
11. Looper
- This is a Wild at Heart situation. If it ran with its original premise it might be one of my favorites of all time, instead it gets edged out of the top 10.
12. Argo
13. The Master
14. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning
15. Ted
16. Kill List
- I might have liked this better on DVD. Missed at least 60% of the dialogue to the accents.
17. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
18. The Hunger Games
19. We Need to Talk About Kevin
- Might have rated higher, but I saw it with a friend who hated it.
20. Safe
21. Sinister
22. Battleship
23. The Watch
24. The Lorax
25. Chernobyl Diaries
26. The Amazing Spider-Man
27. Man on a Ledge
28. Taken 2
- the most technically incompetent movie I saw in theaters this year.
29. Prometheus
- should probably rate higher due to the sheer joy I've gotten from bitching about it.
30. Savages
- There was no way I was going to walk out of Prometheus due to franchise loyalty, but this is probably the closest I've ever come to walking out of a theater on a movie. Not even the fun kind of bad, just horrible and simultaneously trashy and pretentious while wasting a few honestly good concepts.

Oh, if we're talking about the level of enjoyment a movie provided, Breaking Dawn Part II is number one on my list. Saw it with my film professor, a feminist and queer film scholar. The experience was ideal.

So what have we learned?

Every tentpole franchise instalment released this year has been flawed (some annoyingly, some seriously, some fatally) but they've been 'too big to fail' anyway can and still earn $1B (e.g. TDKR).

People's top movies of the year are dominated by low to mid-budget one-off movies.

Last edited by avatar (2012-12-24 10:54:05)

My favourites this year were probably The Raid and Avengers Assembled. I also really enjoyed The Hobbit, Looper, Dark Knight Rises, Battleship, Dredd (thanks for the reminder Jimmy!) and John Carter.

I was a bad film fan this year, I didn't really see much. I watched a lot more TV in the (dis)comfort of my computer desk (or android phone) - Homeland, Walking Dead, Dexter, Clone Wars, Spartacus, West Wing (old of course) - and played quite a few time-suck computer games (Shogun Total War, Empire Total War, Skyrim, X3: Terran Conflict, Mount & Blade).

Last edited by redxavier (2012-12-24 19:15:58)

And may that be a lesson to us all.

DJANGO UNCHAINED has jumped onto my list, so the tally now is:

1. Cloud Atlas
2. Dredd
3. Cabin in the Woods
4. Rock of Ages
5. Ted
6. Dark Knight Rises
7. Django Unchained
8. Avengers
9. Wreck-It Ralph
10. Total Recall

Sorry Spider-Man. If Andrew Garfield is sad about this I am more than ready to comfort him.

Everyone's forgetting Wrath of the Titans on their Worst list. There's something worse than being Worst and that's being forgotten.

On the other hand, Prometheus joins Phantom Menace and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as "unforgettable" because they sucked goodwill out of their franchises. They give new meaning to the term 'vampire movies'.

Shit I did see that, and had completely forgot

Not surprised, just genuinely shocked that my brain had literally forgotten that movie even existed. Also, to clarify, Cloud Atlas is at the bottom of my worst list, meaning least bad, not most bad, I like certain things about it, but I think its a mess. You should definitely see it to find out what side you fall on.

All right, so I've managed to see only three movies this year. I had completely lost the habit of going to the theater, and was busy catching up with older movies I still had to see, but I'm getting better. Please note that Django Unchained has yet to be released in France.

Here goes :

1. The Hobbit
2. Dark Shadows
3. Prometheus

I loved 1, enjoyed it completely. 2 was a very powerful "meh", to say the least. And 3... I don't even want to go there.

Damn, was 2012 a poor movie year for me. Only three movies, and only one of them actually entertained me. Welcome, 2013.

Last edited by Saniss (2013-01-07 17:24:17)

I didn't see a lot in theaters and only caught a couple of this year's entries on disk afterward. 

• Dark Knight Rises

• The Hobbit

• Skyfall

• The Avengers

• Hotel Transylvania

• Looper

• John Carter

• Amazing Spider-Man

Of these, The Avengers was most enjoyable. Only Hotel Transylvania and John Carter were much of a disappointment.

Last edited by Zarban (2013-01-07 18:05:48)