Prometheus! Such a meaningful word. This movie I had the pleasure of seeing in theaters, which of course means it is automatically a bit better than it might be, so the review could change months later.
Outside of the amazing trailers, of course I knew that Ridley Scott was the director. I had heard originally that they planned on being a prequel to the Alien movies, but it was scrapped when it became so big. Well, it still is pretty much. Not a direct prequel, but same universe, and before Alien at least.
I’m sure there is nothing ominous about those vases.
Prometheus is the name of the ship, sent to a moon of a very very distant planet. Two archaeologists, Liz Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) find a bunch of cave paintings, showing old nations worshiping a lager man, and pointing to a very specific star system. It is weird, because none of these nations would have had contact, and are quite old.
So they believe that these beings are inviting them to their planet, and really want to “meet their maker”, and so they convince a trillionaire (Guy Pearce, looking like an old Bill Maher) to finance a ship and crew to do just that. Presumably the ship cost most of the funding, so not all individuals of the crew were the top of their field (on a potentially suicide mission), but still. We got a pilot (Idris Elba), a biologist (Rafe Spall), a geologist (Sean Harris), some sort of high level CEO like figure (Charlize Theron) and an adroid who is fucking fantastic (Michael Fassbender).
Of course other people too, like medics, navigators, security, etc. But eh whatever.
They go to the planet, find the people in question, but they are all dead (OR ARE THEY?). Also, find some nice black ooze. I’m sure after this they go home disappointed and no one dies.
After unlocking all of the secrets of the universe, of course.
Let me go over some pros first:
Michael Fassbender as an android. So good. So so good.
The visuals and shiny colors.
That basic premise.
Some of the cons?
Well, obviously, this is by far the worst depiction of a geologist I have ever seen in film. Thus my comments on not top of the field. Scientifically, a lot of this film is a travesty. Liz demanding no weapons on a new planet for safety, is pretty dumb, as is having only one “Expert’ on each field. But man, that geologist. It sucked, knowing he would die so fast in the film before I knew his field.
A lot of the characters don’t get as much development as one would like. So when certain self sacrifices are made, emotionally it doesn’t hurt as much because we barely know these people. Other conversations seemed forced (“I can’t have babies!” “Father!” etc) and it almost cringe worthy to see. Also drugs.
If I could rate this just on potential? It would be quite high. A lot of the elements are there but I think a bit too much was left on the cutting room floor. This film with a directors cut would probably be great. There is a lot of implied themes that make this film great as well, with plenty of evidence. Just…not enough for me to call it great.
Give a watch, but maybe wait for a nice Directors cut on Blu-Ray.