- Nate Lemann
ALIEN HORROR SUMMER - NO. 14: PROMETHEUS (2012) MOVIE REVIEW
Ridley Scott returns to the franchise that put him on the map…but this film is less concerned with Xenomorph mayhem, exploring deep existential themes like the origin of man and what it means to create life.
by Nate Lemann
Ridley Scott’s return to the “Alien” franchise was long-awaited but in choosing to return to the film that put him on the map back in 1979, he worked on creating a sci-fi epic that had little interest in Xenomorph mayhem. Instead, Scott and writers Scott Spaihts and Damon Lindelof crafted a story about the search for our creators and reckoning with the idea that our engineers may not have been so benevolent.
We open with a giant, alien looking creature on a pre-historic earth bidding farewell to a spaceship. It then swallows a poison that disintegrates its body into a river, seeding the first pieces of DNA that will eventually become humanity. We then hard-cut to Naomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw discovering a cave drawing in 2089 Scotland that is eerily similar to other depictions found throughout many distant and ancient civilizations; they all reference giants pointing to a distant star constellation. Shaw and her boyfriend/partner Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) convince a dying Peter Weyland (an unrecognizable Guy Pearce) to fund an exhibition to this distant solar system that contains a moon that could sustain life. The goal: hopefully meet the creators of humanity and learn what our purpose was in their “grand design”.
As cyborg David (Michael Fassbender in a just a masterclass of a performance) wakes the crew after two years of hyper sleep, we begin to see what Weyland’s fortune bought him: leading the crew with steely authority is Weyland executive Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), joined by pilot Janek (Idris Elba) and his crew (Benedict Wong and Emun Elliot), punk geologist Fifield (Sean Harris really announcing himself as an oddball performer), and biologist Millburn (a very funny Rafe Spall), among other more nameless crew. Once their vessel, the Prometheus, lands, the scientists make a bee-line to a temple looking structure and go digging for answers. However, the further they explore, the more they realize they may have made a terrible mistake coming here.
Most of the film is very ably acted, with some characters just written in an odd way. Elba and his team are actually quite underrated with their emotional arc, having one of the best payoffs (it’s a scene that always sends chills down my spine). Marshall-Green really got the short straw of a role with his Holloway really making little sense from an emotional arc. Rapace is fairly good in the Ripley style role, not being an exact copy of Weaver’s iconic performance but holding a great deal of mental and physical fortitude, nonetheless. Theron is also fairly poorly served, her role being a wet blanket for the other characters.
The marvel has got to be Fassbender. Everything about this “perfect” specimen is eery and unnerving. When you watch the film for the first time, you wonder why he can be so off-putting but you come to realize he is the true antagonist of this picture, with his motivations being amazingly complex and interesting. This story is about creation and asking what if we found God but he actually hated us: they come to realize what they found was not the home wold for the cradle of humanity but rather a bioweapons testing site. David, having a complex relationship with his creators (very often being put down for not having a soul), decides that if humanity’s creators aren’t so noble and worth meeting, maybe he too can see that his creators aren’t worth saving.
As far as mayhem goes, the first half of the film is slow and bit head scratching. That said, once you get to the back half of the picture, you are treated to some of the most insane and gory alien violence ever depicted on film. It actually took my breath away how far Scott and the team went with it, with some of the deaths being widely violent, yet somehow poetic. It almost would’ve been better if this was not related to the “Alien” franchise, but Scott has earned as much leeway as he wants to explore his early creations to play with themes that will both shock and awe viewers. It also helps he has made one of the most beautifully looking films and has a score that swells with both wonder and horror.
While not up to the same level of quality as the first two Alien films, this rumination on our place in the universe is a very misunderstood sci-fi epic worth seeing.
FINAL RATING: 4/5 Stars (Sci-fi epic, both the ponderous and terrifying)
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