Prometheus
Ridley Scott returns to the science fiction genre for the first time in thirty years, and the result is maddeningly disappointing. Prometheus isn't disappointing in the same way the Star Wars prequels are, mind you, where you are wondering why (besides to make money) these stories are even being told. Prometheus is disappointing because the story, and the universe they are trying to build are SO interesting, and have such great promise, that the fact it only ends up being a good film is really a let down. There is still more than enough in here to make it worth seeing in theaters.
It should go without saying that spoilers will be included within. Proceed at your own caution.
Upon discovering the exact same cave drawings among ancient civilizations, thousands of years apart, that would have had no contact with each other, a group of scientists set out on an expedition to try and discover the origin of humanity, and meet their creators (engineers as the characters call them).
This has to be said before anything else. Visually, Prometheus is an unqualified masterpiece. It is one of the best looking films I have seen in a long time. The scope and grandeur of the visuals (the cinematography, sets, special effects) are amazing. The 3D is very well done, and never draws attention to itself. There is a scene late in the film where a character looks at some large, holographic maps of the universe, and the depth of the 3D really convey the reality of the space. Even if the story of the film were to lose your attention, you could just sit back and enjoy the visuals being presented to you. I am really not sure what else to say about how the film looks. There are no flaws here for me to pick apart. I just wish the execution of the story could live up to the look of the film.
The bones are the story are strong. Very strong as a matter of fact. The idea of searching out the origins of our species, of trying to meet our makers, is a ambitious one, and Prometheus has to be given credit for wanting to tell such a story. However, wanting to tell a story is one thing, but actually telling it is something else. Here is where the film falls apart. Let's start with the characters; they are poorly defined. Take, for example, the character of Holloway, played by Logan Marshall-Green. He goes from excited explorer/scientist to drunk, whining about not being able to talk to his creators in the space of a scene (actually, within the space of no scenes, as he suddenly hitting the sauce with no transition into drunk mode). Holloway does better than most of the other supporting characters. The biologist and geologist (whose names aren't worth mentioning) act like assholes, then act like idiots, then die. There are a bunch of virtually nameless, faceless people walking around the space ship that are never anything but background.
Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapce) and Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) fare somewhat better. Vickers' icy demeanor is at least paid off with a motive (more inferred than supplied, but it is something) and Theron does fine work with it. Shaw is ostensibly the main character, and Rapace is very good, yet Shaw, do to one plot complication after another, is in a constant state of flux, and as a viewer, we are never give time to be as involved in her character as we need to be. Her changes in mood at least make sense, as sudden as they may be, unlike Holloway.
The most memorable characters, by far, are Michael Fassbender as the artificial person David, and Idris Elba as the ship's captain Janek. Fassbender, in particular, owns this film as the quietly malevolent android. You spend the whole film guessing what David's true motivations are. This type of ambiguity is nice. In a film where most characters fall to some type of hysterics, the subtly of David's actions most welcome. His mood isn't repainted in every scene. Elba's Janel, besides being the only supporting character to be fleshed out at all, might be the only character blessed by the script with moments that doing have directly to do with the plot. His conversation with Vickers about getting laid is the highlight of the movie. And, although his big moment where he reveals the truth about the planet's importance (he just suddenly arrived at this information), Elba sells it.
If I had to lob one complaint at Prometheus, it is that the film doesn't breath. It is a two hour film that should have been at least a half hour longer. As it plays, the script feels incomplete. The result is the character arcs are abrupt. No time is spent pondering the nature of existence, assessing the threats that arise, dealing with the fate of the "engineers", delving in any meaningful detail as to what is in the "engineer's" ship (those vases and the serpent like creatures). David and Holloway do have one scene like that, but Holloway's sudden inebriation is distracting from it. This film should have been a slow burn. Instead, it feels like too much happening too often. They should have taken a page from Alien's playbook and really took the time to set up the world, story and characters before plunging head long into chaos.
Wait, what film did I just bring up? Alien? I waited as long as I could before mentioning that film as this adds even further complication to the film. As it stands right now, there is either too much or too little Alien set up in Prometheus.
There are several moments inspired by Alien that I thought were really good. The room with the giant head and the vases was a great visual reference to the room with the eggs from the original. When Vickers refused to let Holloway back on the ship because he was infected with something, and how that scene played out, was a nice twist on the scene in Alien when Ripley wouldn't let Kane come on board with the alien on his face. I also really liked how the origin of the alien DNA was a weapon created by the Engineers to wipe out life on earth, but ended up getting loose and killing those that created it (that was why Ripley was so dead set on never letting any aliens fall into the company's hands. She knew that's EXACTLY what would happen).
The most memorable characters, by far, are Michael Fassbender as the artificial person David, and Idris Elba as the ship's captain Janek. Fassbender, in particular, owns this film as the quietly malevolent android. You spend the whole film guessing what David's true motivations are. This type of ambiguity is nice. In a film where most characters fall to some type of hysterics, the subtly of David's actions most welcome. His mood isn't repainted in every scene. Elba's Janel, besides being the only supporting character to be fleshed out at all, might be the only character blessed by the script with moments that doing have directly to do with the plot. His conversation with Vickers about getting laid is the highlight of the movie. And, although his big moment where he reveals the truth about the planet's importance (he just suddenly arrived at this information), Elba sells it.
If I had to lob one complaint at Prometheus, it is that the film doesn't breath. It is a two hour film that should have been at least a half hour longer. As it plays, the script feels incomplete. The result is the character arcs are abrupt. No time is spent pondering the nature of existence, assessing the threats that arise, dealing with the fate of the "engineers", delving in any meaningful detail as to what is in the "engineer's" ship (those vases and the serpent like creatures). David and Holloway do have one scene like that, but Holloway's sudden inebriation is distracting from it. This film should have been a slow burn. Instead, it feels like too much happening too often. They should have taken a page from Alien's playbook and really took the time to set up the world, story and characters before plunging head long into chaos.
Wait, what film did I just bring up? Alien? I waited as long as I could before mentioning that film as this adds even further complication to the film. As it stands right now, there is either too much or too little Alien set up in Prometheus.
There are several moments inspired by Alien that I thought were really good. The room with the giant head and the vases was a great visual reference to the room with the eggs from the original. When Vickers refused to let Holloway back on the ship because he was infected with something, and how that scene played out, was a nice twist on the scene in Alien when Ripley wouldn't let Kane come on board with the alien on his face. I also really liked how the origin of the alien DNA was a weapon created by the Engineers to wipe out life on earth, but ended up getting loose and killing those that created it (that was why Ripley was so dead set on never letting any aliens fall into the company's hands. She knew that's EXACTLY what would happen).
Prometheus began its life as a more traditional prequel to Alien. It was more solely focused on the creation of the xenomorph. Ridley Scott, feeling the xenomorph had been done to death, and wanting to do something more original, brought in another writer. For a while, it looked like it might not be related to Alien at all. Here is how things ended up, however. The very presence of the Engineers (the race that the space jockey from Alien belonged to), a ship exactly like the derelict from the original and the existence of "the company" (Wayland Industries) makes this film a prequel to Alien. Prometheus goes further than that. It actually details the creation of the alien, even ending with the birth of what people seem to be calling the proto-xenomorph.
As the film plays right now, I can't help but thinking less focus on the origin of the alien would have helped the movie overall. It would have allowed more time to focus on the main story of the film. The alien origin also seems oddly removed from the rest of the material. David's motivations for a lot of things feel ambiguous, but I am still scratching my head as to why he slipped that goop into Holloway's drink. Was he trying to give Holloway the chance to feel what happened to the Engineers? Was he on orders to experiment with bizarre DNA. Was he pissed off at Holloway suddenly taking to the bottle? Was he curious? Did he think it might be funny? Here lies the whole problem. The alien elements feel left over from another screenplay. Scott had hinted that during this film, sharp fans of alien might notice the beginning of the xenomorph's DNA. The final scene of the film is the proto-xenomorph bursting out of an Engineer's chest. Blind fans of the original would have spotted that. These elements might have fit together better with the none alien related material if the film had a running time to handle them.
As if this film didn't have enough going on anyway, the late game appearance of Peter Weyland (Guy Pierce) adds another plot complication. It manages to be both obvious, and out of the blue. What's worse is that Wayland hasn't been developed at all in the film. His biggest development was actually in the viral marketing campaign for the film http://blog.ted.com/ted2023/ (well worth checking out). I mention this separately because I love Guy Pierce and nothing got me fired up for Prometheus more than the Peter Weyland's TED speech. One thing I was really hoping the film would deal with was Weyland, and the creation of his company, which went on to become Weyland/Yutani and spent three films trying to screw over Ripley. Once again, there was the chance to enlarge the alien universe without banging down the door of the xenomorph. Of course, this is just something I would have liked to see, and nothing I hold against the film. Weyland, however, taxes an already overburdened two hours.
Prometheus had some big ideas it wanted to tackle. Faith vs. science. Why are we here? Who created us and why? Why did the creators change their minds and try to destroy us? These are great, fascinating questions. There may be no answers to them, either, and that is OK. But Prometheus is afraid to let the characters dwell on such questions. I said that Prometheus should have taken a page from Alien's playbook with its deliberate setup. Although I think most films could do with the wonderful setup storytelling of Alien, a better comparison for Prometheus (being a very different film from Alien) is Steven Spielberg's Munich. Munich is another film that asks some huge questions (in that case, the proper response to terrorism and what is the price for that response), and also has the humility realize it doesn't have all the answers. What Spielberg's masterpiece has over Prometheus is a running time of two hours and forty four minutes. It took the time to deal with its issues, and it did it all wrapped in the form of a thriller. Although those are quite high expectations to expect from a film, Ridley Scott has delivered before. His 1982 Blade Runner is another visionary film asking questions on the nature of humanity. He knows how to do it.
Despite the fact I have spent nearly the whole review ragging on Prometheus, I still greatly enjoyed this film. The problem is simply that the potential is here for so much more, and I have trouble over looking that. However, this is one of the best looking films I have ever seen. The actors are good. There is wonderful material and sequences (the scene with David in the Engineer's navigation system is AMAZING). See this film, just be aware it is a good treatment of great material.
**** (out of *****)
Fassbender saves this film for me. Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron are mostly wasted, and Rapace does nice work but I find her character simply annoying... and your description of Halloway is perfect. And meanwhile, there's Michael Fassbender, a kind of walking version of HAL, somewhat more threatening, but in that benign/innocuous way.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure another half-hour was needed - the film is pretty long as it is. This just needed a different structure. Maybe forego all the unnecessary side murders and focus on the core group of characters and the slow deconstruction/testing of their faith - which is really what the film is about. I agree more time was needed to do them justice, I just think we needed less time on the violence/Alien stuff.
I think this film could have worked as it was. This film never breaths, and not as in "this film is breathless". The film is only two hours, and I think there could have easily been enough here for a riveting 2 1/2 or 2 2/3 hour film.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I have to say, with all of the viral media focusing on the Weyland corp., I wanted to know more about the company. Between the campaign and the film, they did an amazing (perhaps second to none) job of universe building. Let us bask in it, please.
Another interesting thought is that, according to Scott, this isn't necessarily how the alien we know began its life. If you notice in the engineer's ship, there is a picture of the xenomorph. The film could have been telling us how the xenomorph evolved, but not the ones from the Alien series. This might have happened on another of the engineer's ships as well. Perhaps it already had.
ReplyDeleteAh, I see what you're saying now, and in that case I agree - the film would have been better with a different pace.
ReplyDeleteI can see what Scott is saying, but that sounds a bit like injecting something into the film that's not really there. If they go on to sequelize this film and take the Alien universe into a kind of tangential realm, they can certainly develop that idea, but for the time being it seems as though we are supposed to view this as the birth of the creature. It does look a little different, but with all the film says about evolution, my assumption was that the creature evolved over time (perhaps in subsequent PROMETHEUS sequels?) into the one we're more familiar with. Obviously my assumption does not deal with Shaw's journey at the end of the film, but that's what I took away from the creature's "birth."
From what I heard, the sequel will have less to do with Alien. It is suppose to be all about Shaw's visit to the home planet of the engineers. Who knows, though.
ReplyDelete