Vatican newspaper criticises Prometheus

The Vatican's newspaper, 'L'Osservatore Romano', has taken Ridley Scott's sci-fi movie 'Prometheus' to task over the 'mishandling' of its subject matter'.

The film, which has just recently been released in Italy, follows a team of space explorers seeking the origins of mankind.

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But 'L'Osservatore' deigned to give it a poor review, saying that it 'mishandles the delicate questions raised by… the battle eternal between good and evil in yet another attempt to steak the secret of immortality'.

It adds that it is 'a bad idea to defy the gods', and suggests that 'the journey of Prometheus should instead symbolize the search for the supernatural', referring to the Greek myth from which the film is named, in which the titan Prometheus creates man from clay and steals fire for human use - and is then punished by Zeus.

The newspaper is often found voicing its opinions over popular movies.

It took 'Avatar' to pieces on its release in 2010, saying that it 'gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature' and that director James Cameron 'tells the story without going deep into it, and ends up falling into sappiness'.

It also described the film as having 'so much stupefying, enchanting technology, but few genuine emotions'.

But oddly, its reaction to 'The Da Vinci Code' sequel 'Angels And Demons' was more benign, despite the novel series putting a part of the Catholic church at the centre of a murderous conspiracy.

It said the film was 'two hours of harmless entertainment that has little to do with the genius and mystery of Christianity, without getting beyond the usual stereotypes'.

Meanwhile, the paper loved the John Landis comedy 'The Blues Brothers', and called the film on the 30th anniversary of its release in 2010 a 'Catholic classic'.