Prometheus review

Since 1979's Alien, Ridley Scott has been heralded as a brilliant, visionary genius. If Prometheus accomplishes ANYTHING, it's to demonstrate that these notions are all wrong.

Prometheus is a complete and utter mess. Spoilers ahead.

It's heartbreaking because I was extremely excited for this movie and I felt based on the strength of the trailers that there was absolutely no way it would be bad. But it is. It really is.

I saw the film yesterday and took all this time to thoroughly absorb what I thought about it. Because honestly folks, I didn't really know what to think or feel as the credits started to roll. I don't think I've ever watched a movie that made less sense. And it's not even the plot that's annoyingly mysterious, even the characters and aliens/animals are doing things that befuddle the mind.

Let's just start at the beginning and I'll go slow.

The movie opens up with a primordial world that could be Earth but it's never stated for sure (probably is). On a cliff overlooking a waterfall, a large, extremely muscular, bald and bluish human-looking man steps out of a robe while a flying saucer-like ship (that we never see again) floats away. The alien man drinks some black goop and starts to disintegrate, his DNA is broken down and this starts some sort of weird process that is never fully explained but hinted that life will now begin on this planet.

Flash forward 50,000 years. If you've seen the trailer, you get the gist. Two "scientists" (I use the parenthesis here because this film is full of people that claim to be scientists doing extremely unscientific things) discover the same star chart being portrayed in different civilizations over different points in history. The constellation is apparently so far that there was no way they could have even seen it. And there's one moon within the system that can support life. So some people who are supposed to be qualified and a ton that aren't head off to this moon.

Elizabeth Shaw (the main character as played by Noomi Rapace) believes that an alien species engineered humanity and was likely influential in our development and left a way for us to find them when we were ready. She calls them Engineers.

Upon landing on the planet, the group find several Pyramid-like formations and go off to explore. They find a spaceship, relics, and more evidence of alien existence including a bizarre black goop that has significant and mysterious capabilities. And the rest is the movie.

It doesn't sound too horrible, but the reality is that this is a clunky, disjointed piece of work that hops all over the place and when it's not hopping from scene to scene it's taking gigantic leaps over plot holes all the while avoiding logic and common sense. It sets up supposedly highly-intelligent beings (human and alien alike) and then has them doing the most ridiculous and insane things that no one in their right mind would be doing given the situation. Especially if they were some highly evolved alien being.

Hence the massive problem with this movie are the Engineers. Well guess what, the Engineers ARE the movie. It's all about them. They supposedly made us and want us to come find them, but we learn upon landing on the moon that it appears as though they've been mostly wiped out by something that happened 2,000 years ago. When we finally wake up the seemingly sole-surviving Engineer (who's been in stasis for 2,000 years - yeah) he pretty much goes ape shit and tries to kill everyone and then take his ship to Earth to commit global genocide. We're never told why or given the big picture. Sure, we can look back in history and sort of figure out what happened 2,000 years ago that would've pissed off the Engineers - but again, are these the actions of intelligent beings.

This makes sense?

Our creators decided to send down one of their own to sort of make the world more peaceful and such, we crucify him and then you just decide to wipe us all out? Really? And why this sort of weird inclusion of religious themes into the Alien mythos? Some of the movie feels like an attack on Christianity, and while that doesn't necessarily bother me, it feels out of place and forced. Shaw is a devout Christian throughout the film and still a believer in God by the end so in many ways the movie is about faith and belief. That's great...still feels off.

Most of this isn't new. I've been reading about the theory of alien involvement with our early development since I was a kid (WAY before Ancient Aliens was on TV thank you very much) and I'd even heard theories that talked about the possibility of Jesus being an alien. Whether this is fact/fiction or even makes sense can be debated, but within the context of Prometheus it makes ZERO sense.

Consistently, scenes and characters are set-up not for any other reason than because the writer's want something to happen at the end of the scene and clearly have no idea how to go about it. No one has any motivation for doing ANYTHING they do. Or, characters are set-up only to be killed off. They are given no characterization (or shoddy characterization at that) and/or screen time and are then just bumped off at random. But why would you care when you didn't even get the chance to know them? Certain characters clearly WANT something or are on this mission for ulterior motives but we never learn what they are or why the person is a certain way. Things are hinted at and sometimes mentioned, but then the movie veers in a different direction, only to go back to that character, have said character killed off in an either ridiculous or stupid way (I'm looking at you Charlize) and we're supposed to care what drove them?

Shaw can run sidewise - Charlize Theron can't...

It's all so weird and surreal. This is the stuff we cover in screenwriting 101, people - the stuff NOT to do. 

And then there was the black goop. The creme de la creme of inconsistency and bewilderment. The magic, mystical, DNA-altering device that is again, never fully explained. Just a quick run-down:

IF an Engineer swallows the black goop: They disintegrate and can become the building blocks of life.

IF a human swallows the black goop: It does SOMETHING to them, it's unclear. Definitely hurts them, makes them sick, probably kills them and has tentacle-things come out of their eyes. It's unclear.

IF a human gets the black goop on their skin: They die, but come back as a super strong zombie.

IF a worm goes for a swim in the black goop: They transform into something akin to an albino boa constrictor and a proto-facehugger that has acid for blood and wants to murder EVERYONE.

IF a human woman becomes impregnated by a man who has swallowed the black goop: She will give birth to a squid baby that will grow into a squid monster that's sort of like a giant facehugger.

*SIGH*

Here's ANOTHER question, what's the point of the elephant armor?

We've all heard Ridley Scott, Jon Spaihts, and Damon Lindelof (director and screenwriters respectively) go on and on about how Prometheus is full of big ideas. Um, maybe. But the problem is that all of these supposed big ideas are either DUMB or so completely left-open for the viewer to determine that they are ridiculous and contradictory. You cannot have a film so full of deus ex machina and call it high art or intelligent - you're making it up as you go, and guess what, it doesn't make sense.

It's like splashing paint on a canvas and calling it art. Well, some people let that fly...I wouldn't and don't. It's pretentious, arrogant, and talentless. And film just does not work like a painting - I know a lot of filmmakers have spent their lives trying to show that it does, but it doesn't. They are simply not the same things, nor should they be.

Still, this is not an artsy or purely pretentious movie. You can have artsy and pretentious flicks, sure, and I might even like a few of them (although I usually find myself annoyed by pretension) but that's not what this is (Hell, Scott is mostly pandering to the fans throughout most of the film). No, this is just sloppy filmmaking. Bad writing? Abso-fucking-lutely, but why film a bad script? So most of the blame must be placed squarely on Scott's shoulders.

Yet this script is supremely terrible. Honest to God, people, this script should not have seen the light of day. It should have been laughed out of Hollywood and never floated onto the desk of an mega-director. It's laughable that this project got funded.

It reminds me of something that the Red Letter Media guys say in their infamous Phantom Menace review about how people all just jumped at the chance to make a Star Wars movie with Lucas because how could that be bad?

Now I know, there will be plenty of people defending Prometheus because of what it so desperately WANTS to be. The fact is, it just is NOT high art. It's a movie that a four-year old could pick apart. Hell it's a movie with plot holes so big you could drive your mini-van through 'em. And ask yourself, if it's such high art, what's with the pandering to the Alien fans proto-Xenomorph appearance at the end?

Squid baby/monster design and creation...

On a positive note or two the movie has a phenomenal score that I loved and felt was oddly heroic for such a seemingly down trodden film. I mentioned before that it's beautifully shot, and it really is. It's almost worth watching just to see a well designed film if not a brilliantly executed story. The acting is very good with Michael Fassbender putting in a particularly stellar performance as the naive and aloof android David. Snub the film for any awards, but give this man some credit. 

One last thought, this isn't really a prequel to Alien. The only connection that Alien has to Prometheus are the Engineers (aka Space Jockeys to Alien fans). Sure, both have similar threads and themes, but Alien takes place on a different planet with a different Engineer ship that had crashed there several THOUSAND years ago. In Alien, the crew of the Nostromo find an Engineer ship crashed on LV-426 that has thousands of Xenomorph eggs in it's hold. In Prometheus, the crew of the title ship find multiple Engineer ships on LV-223 that seem to hold millions of jars of the black goop.

That means that Xenomorphs have existed LONG before the events of Prometheus, if Scott wanted this movie to be it's own thing (as he's said in interviews) why was it necessary to have hints and nods towards the Xenomorph race?

I mean, I guess if the black goop doesn't destroy it's victims it apparently morphs beings into part of the Xenomorph cycle, that would explain the squid baby/monster and the worms. But what about the space zombie?

Why would the Engineers who left messages for us during a time when they loved us invite us to come to their black goop planet?

How does a human womb and black goop make a giant squid facehugger (complete with multiple beaks)?

Why doesn't the last Engineer ever say anything?

Why are the mutated earthworms so hostile?

Why do the Engineers all look identical?

What are David's (the android) motivations?

Ugh, too many unanswered questions and leaps of logic and faith. That about sums it up in a nutshell. I mean, do you see the work you have to put in to understand this flick? It just doesn't make sense. Take that or leave it.

Maybe I'll like the movie more if a sequel is ever made and some of this stuff is fleshed out, but seeing how Ridley Scott isn't really known for sequels and they don't often make them for R-rated movies that aren't massive hits I think this is probably a long run...so instead I'll probably just get angrier over time that they made such a deep from left field completely wide open movie. 

Further reading that I enjoyed, http://www.toplessrobot.com/2012/06/robs_prometheus_faq.php#more.


4 / 10