“Prometheus” reviews erupting from critic’s chests. Or something like that.

Yep, that looks a bit familiar…

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw has had his say.  And various French critics – via the shimmering space voodoo of Google Translate – have spoken forth, too.

The initial word on Ridley Scott‘s quasi-return to the “Alien” universe, “Prometheus”,  seems to be distinctly divergent, varying between mixed acceptance, exultant delight and grumpy disillusion.   Which is as it should be, surely?  I find myself never quite trusting films which arrive with uniform critical assent – no film can possibly appeal to all people, so why should we expect to see reviews which follow the same tone and cite identical positive factors and then expect those views to offer us an accurate picture of what we’re going to see?

Can a sci-fi hater treat this film fairly?  Should we listen to the views of paid-up members of the Ridley Scott fan club (I think I’m still entertainments secretary of that happy group)?  Or should we just be happy with the fact that Scott’s back in the SF zone and resolutely doing his own thing?

Me and Peter B.

I have a love-hate relationship with “Guardian” film critic Peter Bradshaw.  Whilst I respect his opinion on film, I rarely – if ever – find myself agreeing with him.  This is partly because he seems to have a critical blind-spot on the SF/fantasy/horror genre and dramatically gifts anything nominally obscure, in a foreign language or self-consciously arty with more praise than it deserves.  I guess you could say this about any film critic – they should be calling ’em as they see them – but with Peter Bradshaw, I find myself driven to comically absurd flights of apoplexy more often than I would like.

If you had to invent a parody of the kind of film writer who should be working for a newspaper like “The Guardian“, Peter Bradshaw would be that guy.  Now, if it were Kim Newman talking smack about genre flicks, you know that I’m going to be listening to him…

Hopefully, then, you’ll understand why I’m slightly nonplussed about his just-published review of “The Avengers”. Am I being trolled or did he really like it?  Because I seem to remember him giving a similarly effusive review to the first “Fantastic Four“ movie, which he later recanted, suggesting that his ebullient, pre-holiday mood had significantly sweetened his mood before taking in a superhero movie that even its staunchest defender would admit had some issues (Doctor Doom, Jessica Alba‘s baffling continued employment, a tone best described as sugary and goofy).

In any case, I’ll be able to stop posting these seemingly endless stories about “The Avengers” as Mrs Rolling Eyeballs and yours truly will be seeing the 11:30am screening at our local cineplex on Friday morning.  Yes, I have taken the day off to see this flick (something that I’m not even doing for “The Dark Knight Rises“) and you already know that I’m a sad excuse for a nerd, so it shouldn’t come as any real surprise.

Some things are – I hope very much – quite worth going the extra mile for.