Now Available: Prometheus

Prometheus

Directed by Ridley Scott

Starring  Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, and Guy Pearce

Rated R (sci-fi violence/gore, some language)

Ridley Scott was once a prominent director. He made such classics as Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, and Gladiator, not to mention very good films like Legend and Black Hawk Down. I was even a mild fan of his approach to Robin Hood. That being said, his revered status is much like that of Oliver Stone- stuck in the past, with very few hits on his resume in the past ten years. Prometheus looks to go backwards in time and leech (yeah, I said leech) off the Alien franchise.

The movie is recently released on DVD, Blu-Ray, and download and boy, when I saw it in theaters, was I fucking disappointed. Scott is a competent director, technically speaking, but virtually every aspect of his film outside of the visuals varies from unbelievably dumb to maddeningly pseudo-genius. Having Lost scribe Damon Lindelof and The Darkest Hour writer John Spaihts do the script was…unfortunate. Lost is, at its worst, a confusing mind-rape that refuses to answer even some of the most basic questions it raises in favor of an increasing level of shark-jumping sci-fi babble. The Darkest Hour is, in its entirety, a dull, insipid, cliché-ridden excuse for an alien-invasion flick. Combining these two forces could only cause problems, especially considering Lindelof had to RE-write Spaihts’ script. The script for Prometheus is bloated, pretentious, filled with stock clichés, and fails to make even basic sense unless you venture outside of the narrative and invent your own mythology for the film. It doesn’t benefit from 6 seasons worth of character development that kept Lost afloat.

A movie about the “space jockey” that appeared briefly in Alien had potential for certain. It was an intriguing idea, and making a movie that attempts to build a mythos about the origins of humanity and the meaning of life. The problem is that it’s a ridiculously lofty premise, and one that almost requires the kind of glib cheesiness that Ancient Aliens provides in order to maintain suspension of disbelief. However, Prometheus maintains a constant level of oppressive seriousness, completely convinced that it is high art and making a statement about life. Unfortunately, it occasionally is. If it was all bad, I’d be glad to personally hate it completely. As it is, though, it falls merely into “disappointing” and “muddled.”

It weaves together so many interesting themes and has so much striking imagery. It looks at the cost of human ambition, the difference between cognition and emotion, and the price of power. But even so, these are similar sci-fi ideas that we’ve seen in countless other sci-fi stories. It achieves nothing new and has no guiding purpose or thesis. It’s a movie content to be a pulp sci-fi film in content, but deliberately attempts to elevate itself to the height of Scott’s other films when the script and subject matter just isn’t up to par. 

The most frustrating example is all of the goddamn plot holes. Suspension of disbelief can only go so far, especially when the serious and overwrought mood conflicts so much with scenes where supposedly intelligent scientists run around hallways and deliberately pet slimy alien worms, to predictably gory results. Characters are all stock clichés and are just lined up for aliens to kill. Plot revelations come along during the last act that reinforce such blatantly overdone tropes as the scientist who puts technology ahead of humanity, and the robot who maybe kind-of has a “soul.” It’s not horribly done; just recycling everything I’ve seen before.

Then we have the obvious sequel setup. It feels like a giant “fuck you.” The whole movie fails to deliver on the promises it puts forth. Yet I can’t help but notice how GOOD Noomi Rapace, Idris Elba, and Michael Fassbender are in their roles. It’s just another frustrating example of a movie not sure of where it wants to go. 

As a genre film, you could do far worse, but if you replaced the actors with Tom Sizemore, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Katie Sackhoff and reduced the budget to 1.5 million dollars, it would be a sci-fi channel original. The actors, budget, and a capable hand behind the camera save what really is just another cheesy genre film that thinks too highly of itself.

C-