Movie Review: PROMETHEUS

Engineer this!

Ridley Scott has said that his new movie, Prometheus, isn't a prequel to Alien, but that it does contain "strands of Alien's DNA." Whatever the basis of that rhetorical distinction means, DNA is an apt term for describing the new film because it is concerned with, more than anything, the beginning of life as we know it.

In the briefest of setups, archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green discover ancient cave paintings in Scotland that appear to be part of an array of similarly matched cave paintings across several other ancient civilizations. The result, believe the two, must be an invitation from a distant alien race, who they call "Engineers" and likely created humans.


Setting aside such a broad misuse of the scientific method, four years later near Christmas 2093, the two along with a crew of 15 others aboard the ship Prometheus approach the distant, Earth-like moon LV-223. Lying for two years in a hypersleep, the voyage is monitored by David (Michael Fassbender), an android who has a curious affinity for Lawrence of Arabia and playing basketball on a bicycle. We get a brief survey of some of the crew when they all awaken. Janek (Idris Elba) is the ship's cigar-smoking, no nonsense captain. Fifield (Sean Harris) is the ornery geologist. Milburn (Rafe Spall) the skeptical biologist. Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) is the cold overseer, sent to represent the Weyland Corporation, who funded the mission. They're all stock characters, not at all dissimilar to the breadth seen in all the previous Alien pictures. 

Prometheus is a big movie in every sense of the word. Not only are its visual and narrative scope vast, but its philosophical questions are of the grandest order. Where do we come from? Why are we here? These aren't particularly new questions, especially in the science fiction genre. But here they are particularly heavy handed.

Upon the arrival at their destination, Elizabeth and Charlie explain their mission, their desire to "meet their maker" as more than one character puts it. And when Milburn, the biologist, asks what makes them think their discoveries can refute centuries of Darwinism, she replies "I choose to believe"--echoing a line said by her father in a dream. But the explicit references to this theme continue. The "meeting their maker" line keeps getting repeated, as too does the appearance of Elizabeth's cross, (again and again, and again) reaffirming her belief in spite of apparent (depending on how you look at it) evidence to the contrary.

The early lines about choice and belief during the film's early sections are enough to carry it through to the end without characters pausing to exposit them over and over. Part of the grace of that original Alien was its lack of pretension. It announced itself as nothing more than a straightforward sci-fi, horror flick. Whatever gestures of meaning the film posited was to be read into, not expounded by clunky dialogue. In many ways it was a B-movie with A-list production value. Prometheus, though, feels like it's trying to be some kind of über-science fiction film. Even the opening shot (among others) quotes directly from that magnum opus of the genre, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Less like the leaner Alien, it owes more to the philosophical musings of the director's other sci-fi classic, Blade Runner, which also explored the deep questions of humanity.

It's a screenplay that is at once thinly-sketched (it's an ensemble piece that allows us very little insight into its characters outside of Elizabeth and maybe David) and overwritten. And while I'm willing to accept some measure of implausibility in any movie--especially a sci-fi, horror one--characters make choices here that are in some cases downright mind-boggling. The hubris and folly of their mission not withstanding, these are all presumably among the smartest and brightest people in their respective fields to be doing some of the things they are doing in this movie.

But the flaws of the screenplay, of which there are several, should not diminish Scott's visual mastery of this world. The opening sweep of Earth's primordial vistas (if that's your interpretation of the brief prologue) are breathtaking and set the stage for the grandeur of the visual scope the movie will create. And it continues with the incredible sets (and yes they are in fact sets), both inside the Prometheus and the cave-like structures upon which the scientist settle. That he's actually using real sets and photographing actors in that space give those scenes a weightier quality. Instead of relying solely on CGI, he uses that tool as a supplement to what is in his camera's frames, augmenting the palpable sense of reality he's creating. They are seamlessly integrated and the resulting shots, vast and dark, are held long enough to simultaneously create a feeling of both wonder and eerie dread.

As a prequel, the movie leaves more loose ends than it ties up. And by the roll of the final credits, a sequel to Prometheus (and before the timeline would reach Alien) becomes patently inevitable. I saw it for a second time in the 3D format and you get as much of the already great visual texture just watching it in a standard 2D screening. But while I found the narrative less engrossing upon that second viewing, the tonal eeriness was still fairly prevalent and a viscerally powerful scene involving Dr. Shaw and a self-surgical machine packed a huge punch. It's only a shame that the film fails to reach a level of profundity that rivals its other virtues.