Prometheus Review

PROMETHEUS

Prometheus is a semi-prequel to Alien, both films done by Ridley Scott. My first impression of this film is that it is very well done in all aspects but I had to take time to consider the story as it was completely shit-throwing pointless. You almost had me fooled, Ridley...almost....

This movie has everything you could want from a sci-fi film with current technology. Space maps are 3-dimensional, glowing techno shows. Monsters are grotesque, mysterious and tangible. Space sex + black ooze = crazy monster births! Typical Ridley, always raping space adventurers. So the plot is, in very basic terms, a couple researchers find some pictographs all over Earth from different ancient cultures, all pointing to a certain star system in the sky. A crew sets off to this planet with the belief that they will meet the beings who created humanity. Our Gods, in a sense. If this sounds like it's straight out of Ancient Aliens, you're right. More on that later. So the crew flies to this planet and finds a ship, ancient and buried under a mountain. As you might predict, this is where everything goes horribly wrong for the crew. The crew of the alien ship are known as Engineers and something has happened to them as well. Something that, as revealing in holographic recordings, killed almost all of them. 

All of the elements were in place but, at some point, went totally off the wall like Hudson faced with a swarm of ugly Xenomorphs. 

"Game overrrr man! Game over!"

Game on, Hudson.

THE GOOD NEWS

As it is, this film has been torn up and down and theorized about. I don't want to speculate on the point of this worm monster's significance as a raping dick or that tentacle beast implying the arms of the child, desperate to destroy it's creator, Instead I am focusing on the basic story itself.

This movie looks fucking great. I haven't seen a film that looked so good in 3D. It was so good in fact, that I think I was concentrating more on how beautiful/grotesque/scenic every little detail was instead of focusing on the story, kinda like porn...

The acting is well done, for the most part. It was the characters themselves that had some issues, which I will get too soon. 

Michael Fassbender was god damn amazing in this movie which is a bit ironic since he was playing a robot. With subtle facial changes and voice inflections, I felt like I was watching a dark, grisly Pinnochio story unfolding. I truly feel that this story was the core of the film, though it was obscured numerous times by the barrage of science fiction horror. At one point, David is speaking with another forgettable crew member that gets some alien sludge disease later on, anyway, here is the quote from IMDB: 

'Charlie Holloway: What we hoped to achieve was to meet our makers, to get answers why they made us in the first place. 

David: Why do you think your people made me? 
Charlie Holloway: We made ya 'cause we could. 
David: Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your creator? 
This small comment sums up David's agenda. He has been used, abused, and underestimated by his creators. Upon this planet are signs of the aliens who influenced the creation of humanity on Earth. Superior beings. Beings more akin to himself. David's story plays out magnificently and I can't help but feel that had the monster aspect of the story been leveled out, this film would be not just eye candy but mind candy....

Even Charlize Theron delivered a solid roll! I wasn't too surprised tho because she had a competent director and wasn't trying to fake an accent and wasn't yelling like a fucking toddler... (I fucking hate Snow White and the Huntsman)

Theron's roll as Meredith Vickers, daughter of Peter Weyland, jealous of the trust her father puts in David, adds a fantastic dynamic to the story. David, the android who wishes to surpass his creator, and a human daughter who wishes to be recognized by hers. Theron pulls off the stuck up, rich bitch character well. Almost too well.... 

Ah fuck! I guess it's just good acting with good direction! Jesus.

THE MASSACRE

Okay, so this movie bothers me because it would have only taken a little bit of tweaking for it to be an incredible prequel to Alien. 

First off, Noomi Rapace isn't bad in this at all. She's just not great. She isn't all that memorable. In fact, the only reason I even remember that she was in it is because she gives birth to a fucking octopus. It's obvious that she is meant as a Ripley type, strong female lead, but she lacks any real dimension of thought or realism. Until she is screaming and having a robot pull her octobaby out, she is mostly a robot. 

This seems to be the case with most of the characters in the film. Unless they died some horrible death, I don't even recall that they were on screen at all. Not that the acting was poor by any means. It wasn't. Characters just lacked depth and seemed to be there as fodder for the monsters. Fair enough, but what made Alien truly awesome was how attached to each character the audience became, just to watch them die one by one. 

Speaking of Monsters (get it?), I think this film suffered from just too much. Apparently this one little can of black ooze has a great deal of versatility.

1. If it gets into maggot worms it creates bigger, nastier face-raping dick worms!

2. It turns people into super strong zombies.

3. If you drink it, you become infected with a disease. A disease which,

4. If you get your freak on and don't wear a raincoat, will impregnate your partner with some kind of squidchild that grows in mere hours!

I would have much preferred to see one creature here in the style of Alien. Or the evolution of one creature through whatever creepy rape monster ideas Ridley has bouncing around that dome of his.

So the point of this film was to examine the idea of the Engineers, the Space Jockeys; that massive boney being sealed in the egg room of the ship in the first Alien film. As it turns out, these Engineers are actually just jacked up, pale skin humanoids that travel and experiment with this black ooze. Okay, I'm still with you there. Then the crew starts to realize, after multiple deaths from crazy critters, that this ship is actually a storage facility for weapons...like chemical weapons?

And the cave paintings were a warning?

To stay AWAY from the planet they pointed at?

And the planet isn't even LV426. (you know, the planet from Alien, with the distress beacon that causes the crew of the Nistromo to land and investigate and eventually find an alien ship?) It seems to me that this film could have been more easily streamlined to fit into the alien universe as a direct prequel. Here's how it should have gone: Crew sets out to planet found on cave paintings, land on LV426 and discover Engineer ship, accidentally open container of black ooze, ooze infects and mutates worms, worms attack crew, David captures one to study, David lets one worm into a room with an insensitive crewman, worm face-rapes and impregnates crew member, face-hugger/baby like creature is birthed from said crew member and starts tearing the crew apart, crew is forced to flee to Engineer ship, David finds and awakens sleeping Engineer, Engineer starts killing crew also, Vickers returns to ship and ejects life boat which crashes on planet, creature is inside, chases Vickers back to Engineer ship where the Engineer is starting take off, Noomi Rapace and David escape to lifeboat and turn on distress beacon, creature face-rapes Engineer causing the alien ship to crash, Queen alien bursts out of Engineer's chest.
Bang. Direct prequel. All ideas about the creation of humanity in tact. David's story unfolds the same. Everyone wins. You're welcome. Feel free to call me any time Hollywood.

THE VERDICT

I enjoyed this movie but it seemed to be written less by the person who brought us Alien and more as if it was brought to us by this guy