Though I did not completely despise Prometheus, my problems with the film are aplenty. I caught the midnight premiere of the much anticipated and long awaited nerd-a-thon, with my trusty 3D goggles in tow. This film marks Ridley Scott's "triumphant" return to the dorktastic Sci-Fi genre, though a triumph it is not. After watching this movie, I get the feeling that Scott jumped back into the space game because it was a sure thing regarding revenue, and not because he was passionate about the project.
(Paging George Lucas!)
The movie opens magnificently with a humanoid alien "Engineer," who looks much like an ancient Greek or Roman statue, standing atop a waterfall on primordial Earth. He sacrifices himself in order to seed our planet with the molecular ingredients for life. I immediately saw this as a religious ceremony, as in; "Oh, I get it, they created us, so they are the gods of man, but who do they worship?" I thought this was a great concept and hasn't really been represented in a major hollywood film before. (Well not since Zemeckis' adapation of Sagan's Contact anyway...)
What I LOVE are the overarching themes, such as the creation and eventual (self)destruction of mankind. The literal Prometheus allusion being that once man is given the privilege of fire, he is unworthy of its power. This, I think, is the string that connects all of these movies together in that the pursuit of obtaining the unobtainable will forever tantalize humanity and all its hubris.
The film goes right in its absolutely awe inspiring spectacle and there are quite a few redeemable elements. One of which being Michael Fassbender's uncanny portrayal of David 8, a synthetic human developed by the Weyland corporation. For his Peter O'Toole invoking performance alone, the movie is worth seeing. But sadly, breathtaking CGI and a single actor's talents, does not a movie make.
There is a great parallel between Weyland Corp. and the Alien Engineers in their mutual terraforming pursuits. Weyland Corp. creates synthetic humans, the Engineers create human beings. Who created the Engineers? It's a fun dynamic that is looped and played around with as David is aware of his creators, while we are in search of ours. I also like the speculation that Theron's character may in fact be an android herself, but it just so happens that she's David's human sister; hence their rivalry. Well played.
Noomi Rapace plays, Elizabeth Shaw, the scientist who discovers where the engineer aliens have been hanging out. She kinda looks like a stubby, baby version of Sigourney Weaver. Her performance is okay, and kudos to her for managing to get the alien surgically removed from her womb on her own. (Which, by the way, is a bit of a plot hole in that NOBODY tries to stop her, after she just ran away from 1 and a half people who were emphatically trying to stop her!) It's a very memorable scene, which showcases an automated surgery phone booth, but is blatantly telegraphed earlier in the movie when they essentially say "Hey, what is that surgery machine doing on board?! Um, never mind that now, we'll get to that scene later." Her baby alien squid wasn't all that scary, though it ultimately manages to grow to the size of the room it's trapped in without consuming any biomass whatsoever. Illogical, captain.
This movie goes wrong, not in its connection to Alien, but with it's attempt to distance itself from the franchise. It desperately introduces all sorts of random, biotech aliens which are no where near as creepy and vicerally repulsive as H.R. Giger's aesthetic provided. There are also too many script problems, and nonsensical character motivations. Why the heck would the two scientists who were scared shitless in a previous scene, all of a sudden want to pet the space cobra? Why would you take your helmet off on an alien planet, when any number of bad things (the least of which would be an unbreathable atmosphere) could infect, poison, or spectacularly eviscerate you. After everyone on board has been violently killed, and even after the Engineer alien tries to kill Shaw (repeatedly), she immediately wants to go after them - on their home planet? Really? I don't buy it. I find that to be an insulting ploy to string us along for sequels, and it was one of the many movie moments that felt completely disingenuous.
At one point the movie becomes John Carpenter's The Thing, and anything that comes in contact with the oozy space puke (i.e. mealworms, mediocre actors, etc.) turns into a belligerent asshole of a beast. Just beating up and killing everything in their path. Why? I couldn't tell you. It seemed perfectly obvious that the Xenomorph from the original Alien was such a dickface, because it was always so dang hangry (hungry + angry)... And humans indubitably look like a bunch of bacon cheeseburgers to a hangry xenomorph. It stands to reason that it had to consume the Nostromo crew in order to have grown 10 feet tall in the 12 or so movie hours that it lurked upon the ship. Fair attempt at space logic there, captain!
I think the only reason why I keep watching Prometheus over and over (not through any illegal means, I assure you) is because it gives me that methadone equivalent to Alien's heroine. It's bits and pieces of something that I wanted for a long time, and if I keep going over those bits, I'll some how feel better. But sadly, it hasn't been working. I still feel that the movie goes off in all sorts of misguided directions, throws in a few red herrings, and leaves me wanting less.
It appears that being clever with the script has gone by the wayside when it comes to making a sci-fi space horror flick these days. I love Ridley Scott's epic, visionary films, and Alien shall forever remain untouched as a singular moment in cinema. Prometheus was a bit too Hollywood, with a syrupy score and ideas too big for its britches. Perhaps the last 33 years wasn't a long enough period for Scott to find a better screenplay to work with.
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