Prometheus
*** out of ****
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender,
Charlize Theron, Idris Elba and Logan Marshall-Green
Running time: 124 minutes
Don’t walk into Ridley Scott's Prometheus expecting a taut, bottled frightfest a la Alien or an explosive thrill ride like
James Cameron’s 1986 follow-up, Aliens.
The film is breathtakingly beautiful and more thematically audacious than any action-packed
summer release in years, but it’s not a particularly frightening ride.
Instead, Prometheus overwhelms with intelligent,
thought-provoking questions, while occasionally underwhelming with thinly drawn
characters and their questionable motivations.
Prometheus is the name of the vessel that we
first see gliding gracefully through space in 2093, many years before the
Nostromo did. It is heading to an undisclosed destination. The travelers inside
include Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, very strong here) and Charlie
Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), two explorers tracing the beginning of life.
While searching for ancient cultural artifacts
on earth, Shaw and Holloway found a series of star maps that lead to a distant
planet – a place they believe has ancestral bodies that holds clues to the
genesis of civilization.
Also on board is David, an android played with
effectively cold (and somewhat ironic) humanism by Michael Fassbender. Although
the easiest comparison to a sci-fi classic would be to compare David to a
walking, talking version of the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, he has the same brooding intensity and
unpredictable nature that defined the replicants from Blade Runner, another of Scott’s films.
David has a superior intelligence and intricate
understanding of human interactions and behaviour yet is unable to connect with
the inhabitants on board.
The ship lands on the distant planet outside a
domed, monolithic cave. When Shaw and the team spelunk inside its recesses,
they find a sanctuary full of cylinders that spew an icky, black liquid – a
substance that these travelers probably shouldn’t touch unless they want a stomach
bursting experience.
With the exception of one gruesome sequence
involving an open surgery, Prometheus
is decidedly less terrorizing than Alien. Instead of following the characters down the
dark corridors of the cave, Scott desires to provoke thought instead.
Prometheus spends much of its time pondering
over creation, discerning between the geneses of man to the invention of
robotic men. The Titan god who shares his name with the
film’s title bears similarities to the corporate profiteers at Weyland, the
corporation that funds the expedition.
Myths of Prometheus tell that he was chosen to
create man by moulding humans out of clay, and despite being the wisest Titan,
he abused his power by deceiving the elder gods to benefit the humans. Likewise,
Weyland invented a God of their own, a robot that could outsmart and outlive
humans, while hiding underneath their own trickster alibi.
Driven by science-fiction concepts, Prometheus gestates on existential
themes and religious paradox that most summer tentpoles won’t touch. The
screenplay is co-written by Damon Lindelof, one of the writers and creators of
Lost, which means that many of these sci-fi elements are introduced and then
left hanging.
As brainy the subject matter and mammoth the
scope, the film sometimes falls to action movie conveniences and
implausibility, especially with ship captain Janek. Despite taking responsibility for the
trillion-dollar mission, he makes several dumb blunders, including forgetting to
page some of his scientists to return to the ship during a sandstorm and then losing
track of these men when peril later approaches.
Prometheus sometimes falters when it holds back
on explanations and a few of the central plot strands are, begrudgingly, left
wide open for a sequel. Regardless, it is still an engaging, well-acted and
impeccably designed journey through the darkest depths of space, a place where
there isn’t as much screaming as this reviewer remembers.
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