 lead a group of scientists to a distant planet in search of a race that, she believes, may have created all human life. When they arrive, however, they encounter unexpected company and soon find themselves fighting […] "'Pin It")
REVIEW: PROMETHEUS
Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s first sci-fi film in thirty years and the much-hyped semi-prequel to 1979’s Alien, sees Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) lead a group of scientists to a distant planet in search of a race that, she believes, may have created all human life. When they arrive, however, they encounter unexpected company and soon find themselves fighting for their survival.
Resembling Alien perhaps a little more than it should, Prometheus’ biggest assets are evidenced within its first 30 minutes. It’s well acted, with most all of the cast performing well – especially Rapace and Michael Fassbinder, who plays token android David – and is visually staggering from the get go, with some of the best production design in a sci-fi movie since 2008’s Moon. This level of visual quality extends to the geographical setting itself and the film’s various creatures, and while never scary in any real sense, Prometheus certainly seems gorier than Alien, basking in all kinds of gunk and viscera and often being at once revolting and remarkable.
But, once the crew begin to plumb the planet’s depths, the faults start to show. Screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof are clearly fans of Scott’s older sci-fi work, and have obviously attempted to write to his strengths, but in doing so turn a number of the film’s plot beats into direct echoes of memorable past scenes. The film is also structurally hampered, featuring no real, singular antagonist for the most part, and while many have praised the film for its asking of existential questions, that is about all it does – ask. Perhaps a symptom of Lindelof’s time writing for Lost, Prometheus fails to provide any real conclusion to the worthy intellectual ideas that it plays with during the first two acts, and likewise offers no real sense of closure or resolution for Shaw, with the filmmakers opting instead laying the foundations for a sequel.
Perhaps the most glaring (and puzzling) flaw lies in the decision to cast Guy Pearce as a an eighty year old. Ostensibly cast to tie the film in to promotional materials, Pearce’s latex-covered old man character is a constant source of distraction and unintentional humour, somehow managing to be the weirdest looking thing in a film which contains alien squids.
Though certainly a film about important things, Prometheus doesn’t necessarily have anything interest to say about them, and the film ultimately ends up being a heady and intelligent sci-fi epic that is unfortunately let down by muddled writing and a number of odd choices. Failing to provide answers on any number of levels, be it plot or theme, the film feels a bit like a half-baked precursor to a potentially great sequel rather than its own thing – the end result being an unsatisfying movie that essentially fails to live up to all the hype. Given the longevity and success of the Alien series, it’s entirely possible that the filmmakers were desperate to match that film’s franchise potential; in doing so, however, they may have sacrificed many of the things that made that film so special in the first place.
Words: Josh Hicks
