Review: Prometheus
Ridley Scott has returned to the franchise of Alien, but instead of going forward he decided to explore the past within the universe. The film is a prequel, but it is better suited to be thought of as it's own film. It pays homage to some of the more signature scenes from the Alien series, but it does it in a fresh and disturbing fashion. Writer Damon Lindelof and director Scott intended that this film would help answer some questions from the original series but also pave the way to a new series set in that same universe. It is a tough task to pull off but luckily they did just that in this film. Does it spawn some problems? Yes, but it is still an entertaining film nonetheless. In fact, it may have been better off it had tried to be it's own film in the Alien universe altogether. If it had stuck to it's central characters, then in the end of it all we would have actually truly cared for them as they were in great peril.
The plot centers around Dr. Elisabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her boyfriend Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) as they have found dig sites around the globe that force them to believe that their "creators" exist somewhere in deep space. In comes the Weyland Corporation and their massive paychecks as they fund the expedition to help Shaw find out the true meaning to the creation of humanity. The Weyland Corporation of course has it's own hidden agenda, but none of it is actually truly told as it never gets any real attention. The group heads to the planet that they had found on a spaceship called "Prometheus" led by Captain Janek (Idris Elba) Other members on board include Weyland employee Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) as she is there to monitor the expedition, as is the android David (Michael Fassbender) created by the billionaire founder, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce). As the group reaches the planet they are immediately greeted by a beautiful landscape, but more importantly they find a structure with straight lines leading to it. They investigate but are disappointed with the results of their findings. All they find is a decapitated head of a giant alien, and odd looking pods that seemed to have some sort of ooze coming from them. David, out of shear curiosity and the absence of a soul, he takes the pod and begins to experiment on it. His experiments lead to the inevitable downfall of one member of the crew. Charlie takes it the worst as he wanted answers more then anyone, but Shaw's faith remains intact.
The trademarks of a normal thriller, space exploration film begin to come into place at this point as things begin to get more and more terrifying for the group. All of the events that transpire forces Shaw to question her faith, while Vickers and Janek simply want to make sure they can get home safely. Vickers, however, would much rather ensure her own personal safety above everyone else while Janek and Shaw would much rather see the bigger picture. The threat of what they were facing was great, and if they were to take it home, humanity would be extinct really quickly, thus they have to take matters into their own hands. David presses on to find answers as that is what he is programmed to do and his curiosity continued to put everyone in more danger.
Despite it's story telling and flaws in character development, it is still an entertaining film that will leave you wondering what is coming next. Ridley Scott does a terrific job in the director chair as we all would expect. The visuals of the film is something that most likely will not be forgotten as the foreign planet was beautifully put together. The "aliens" however looked as if they were Voldemort on steroids, but still had the humanoid look to themselves to help the viewer wonder if they were actually our makers. The real surprise of the film was in fact the faith aspect of it all. It adds another wrinkle into the plot that helps it stick, but due to the weak characters it lacks the ability to truly capture the audience. Noomi Rapace as Elisabeth Shaw does a better job of playing the broken Shaw towards the end of the film but as the naive version in the beginning, she just comes off as an annoying woman. Michael Fassbender as David is fantastic. He continues to add to his rapidly growing library of terrific performances. Every time he was on the screen, the film became that much more entertaining. His delivery of lines is spectacular, especially the humorous ones. Charlize Theron's character to me could have been much more fleshed out. She seemed to have a relationship of some sort to Peter Weyland that is never delved into, leading some to even believe that she in fact was an android. Idris Elba shows yet again why he deserves the chance to carry his own film. He has the ability and has plenty of screen presence even in such a small role. Overall, it was a good film with some flaws that may detract from the experience. Prometheus benefits from having an incredibly talent cast mixed with one of the best directors of our generation.
