Prometheus - Directed by Ridley Scott - June 2012

Prometheus June 2012

Director: Ridley Scott

I want to make this clear: THIS IS NOT ALIEN. Got it? Good. Any ideas that you have, any references you may have made to the original ALIEN film need to be wiped clean. This is a new movie, a new idea and if you go in thinking it will have all the hallmarks of Alien, you will be sorely disappointed.

With that out of the way, read on, but only if you dare. There are spoilers here!

For anyone living under a rock for 30 years, Ridley Scott is some famous director that brought us the original Alien film, you know, that one with the tagline “In space no one can hear you scream”. It was a marvellous mash-up of the sci-fi and horror genres that frightened people half our of their brains in 1978 and spawned a successful franchise (Alien V Predator are not included in that statement, fuck, they don’t exist in my mind) and gave the world of cinema one of its strongest leading ladies, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver).

Ridley went on to direct another famous sci-fi film Blade Runner and a string of great films including Thelma and Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and American Gangster. A couple of years back, at the height of adding new films to franchises, the old man hinted at an Alien Prequel. Well, that news sent many fans into a frenzy, causing the internet to almost implode upon itself, with the hope that 2 burning questions would be answered, 1. What was/is the Space Jockey and 2. How did the derelict spacecraft end up on LV426. But slowly details began to emerge that the film may not be a prequel; in fact, it may not be an Alien film at all.

Ridley had been very cryptic in answering questions about the film. He never directly said that his new film, Prometheus, was or was not a prequel or what it really was about, but what he did say was that when they started writing, they realised there were bigger questions that needed answering and that the film was set in the same universe as Alien.

How this would be possible remained to be seen. How could you have a film set in the same universe as Alien, but not have any aliens (as in, those black mother fuckers with the teeth, the two mouths and acid for blood) in it?

The trailer which was released almost a year ahead of the film didn’t help. In fact is inflamed opinion, rumour and speculation about the films central themes and did nothing to answer any questions about whether or not it was an Alien prequel and Ridley was simply keeping his cards close to his chest.

Prometheus is an enormous film. So big in fact that they created the biggest sound stage ever required to house the sets.  Sir Ridley has spared nothing in making this a grandiose spectacle of CGI brilliance. But it comes at a cost. The film is so big and spends so much time asking huge questions that the characters are almost reduced to stowaways.

I’m not sure if I should be disappointed or if it simply did not meet my expectations and see it for what it’s worth.

The let down is the script. The idea is generous and allows for a strong narrative to carry it, but it muddles itself asking all these really big questions and leaves few of them answered or explored. I don’t think the audience needs to be spoon fed, but I just felt that we were rushed through feelings and thoughts, opinions and beliefs a little too quickly which left the characters feeling a little hollow.

In Alien, it is a slow burn to the end which is what makes the horror of it work. You know something is coming and when it does, it’s when you least expect it. Nothing is for the sake of it – everything is setting you up for the scare.

Here, in Prometheus, there is gore and scares, but no horror, which is what I wanted. I wanted to be scared shitless, I wanted a reason to be on the edge of my seat. I agree that audiences are harder to scare these days, but there were two things that happened in this film, for “scare sake” that make no real sense. The scares feel like they are simply there for the sake of it. I wanted claustrophobia – tight corners, narrow corridors, close ups, you know, the usual. But the vastness and enormity of the film lose that one thing that worked for Alien, there was no escape.

Perhaps I wanted an Alien too much, or expected too many hallmarks from the original and now with some distance, I recognise that this is a film that needs to stand on its own which it does well, but you are left wanting more and it’s from the characters that you want it. I can be satisfied with hypothetical questions that remain unanswered, but I want to care about the people in a film, that why we are there.

But to understand the origins of Prometheus, you have to know the Alien universe, so drawing relationships between the two are inevitable.

In Alien, the team onboard the cargo ship Nostromo set down on the planet of LV 426 after being raised by a distress signal. When Kane, Lambert and Dallas enter a derelict spacecraft, they discover not only a hive of eggs, but also a mummified alien known only as the Space Jockey with a hole in its chest – we discover later the cause for the hole, but that’s another movie.

The main question raised, never explained in Alien or Aliens, was the how the derelict spacecraft came to be on the planet of LV 426 in the first place and what was this Space Jockey. Was it enemy or foe and how did the Aliens overcome them?

Prometheus promised to explain all this or at least hinted to some origins of what the Space Jockey was. The trailer promised this also, there was a huge ship blown apart and falling from the atmosphere, an Alien in a mural, a woman screaming, gooey slime, and the opening of the Space Jockeys canon.  It was safe to assume that they were visiting the planet we know as LV 426.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*.

But they don’t. Scientists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Halloway (Logan Marshal-Green) discover an invitation from our makers to come find them.  The same constellation of stars appears in tribal paintings from a number of ancient civilisations which is translated into said invitation.

 All eager, the Scientists head on out to a planet only named LV223 and never before been too, expecting to discover their makers, or the Engineers as they have affectionately named them. Soon they discover more than they bargained for, yep they created us, but they also wanted to destroy us and how they planned to do that was to pummel the earth with bombs made of...um...alien organisms. They obviously weren’t happy with the end result, but something went wrong which is then unleashed upon the unsuspecting crew. Yes Shaw, you were wrong.

It’s Michael Fassbender (X-Men First Class, Shame) that pulls the cast through the weak script. Out of all the characters, his cyborg David seems to be the most well developed and thought out with unnerving motives and emotionless  betrayals that leave Ian Holms Ash for dead. Its testimony to Fassbender’s acting chops that he can add such dimension to a one dimensional character.

Charlize Theron (is Vickers, Weylands daughter and the next in line to the vast Weyland empire and throne. She is restrained in her convictions but lacks credibility and leaves you wanting more. You really want a reason to smile when she dies, believing she deserved it, but there was an unexplainable apathy about her that just didn’t work. Vickers is the compass of fear onboard the Prometheus, yet you have a hard time believing it or believing there is reason for her motives.

Every other character is simply fodder with little depth or time spent exploring who they really are and why they are there. In the end, when they all die, you care little for their deaths and spend more time wondering why they died in the first place.

The film ends with a sequel in mind and perhaps the biggest reveal that this is in fact a prelude to better things to come, and hopefully more answers than questions.

3 popcorns out of 5....only for the art direction.