By Zack Gill
Copy Editor
At one point in Ridley Scott’s newest film, “Prometheus,” the android David (Michael Fassbender) says that “big things have small beginnings;” obviously, he wasn’t referring to the film he is featured in, as “Prometheus” is flashier and more grandiose than Scott’s 1979 classic “Alien,” the film that “Prometheus” is a prequel to.
“Prometheus” marks Scott’s first foray in science fiction since 1982’s “Blade Runner.” Fortunately, Scott proves he isn’t rusty in genre-filmaking in any way: “Prometheus” boasts a stellar cast, pristine visual effects and is, at least some of the time, authentically horrifying.
In the film, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) convince the aging trillionaire Peter Wayland (Guy Pierce) to fund a space expedition to a system of stars featured in the pictograms of numerous ancient civilizations in hopes of discovering the origins of mankind.
And so the titular space vessel Prometheus departs, manned by an eclectic crew featuring the likes of the jocund Captain Janek (Idris Elba); the calculating android David (Fassbender); and their icy supervisor, Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), who doesn’t believe the expedition will find anything of significance. Of course, it does in fact find something, as the crew contends with an ancient evil that it accidentally awakens.
The film’s visual effects are artful. Scott went out of his way to use physical effects and sets, and the result is stunning. Massive caverns and cold-space vessel compartments fully realize the film’s world in a manner more expensive than the Nostromo spaceship set of the original “Alien.” Whereas claustrophobia defined “Alien,” isolation pervades the world of “Prometheus.”
Many cast members provide memorable performances. Rapace is excellent, but don’t mistake her for Sigourney Weaver; while Weaver operated with a convincing survival instinct and intensity in “Alien,” Rapace is fueled by a misguided idealism, albeit, an entirely convincing one.
Elba is the main comic relief in an otherwise brutally serious film, but his performance is subtle and reserved. Theron, despite melodramatic writing, performs well as Vickers. Theron yet again proves herself to be one of the best villainesses in film today.
Fassbender, however, supplies the film’s only truly remarkable performance. While Ian Holm and Lance Henriksen’s android performances in the “Alien” series portray machines desperately attempting to emulate humans, Fassbender’s David is more alien. With wise restraint and impeccable comedic timing, Fassbender’s sinister David shines in nearly every scene he’s featured in.
On the other hand, Logan Marshall-Green’s archaeologist is downright annoying, while the geologist Fitfeld (Sean Harris) is aggravatingly illogical in a crew supposedly consisting of the finest of their respective fields.
Occasionally, “Prometheus” is truly terrifying. Although the film is on a scale much larger than that of “Alien,” “Prometheus” still features a bevy of memorably disturbing scenes. This includes a robotic alien caesarean scene that has the potential to be remembered in the vein of the alien pop-out scene in “Alien.” However, “Prometheus” is paced more like an action movie than a horror film, with full-blown fights and a set-piece climax.
Unsurprisingly, screenwriter and producer Damon Lindelof (co-creator of “Lost”) opts out of answering most of the countless questions the film raises throughout its plot. Lindelof’s characters theorize about the events of the film, but the audience never receives explicit conclusions about the events that transpire. Only two things are definite: Lindelof sets up a sequel, and the film sets up the events of “Alien,” which occurs hundreds of years after “Prometheus” takes place.
And so, perhaps the ultimate problem with “Prometheus” is its identity. As a prequel, the film simply isn’t as inventive or as scary as “Alien,” nor is it as fantastic and phantasmagorical as James Cameron’s “Aliens,” the 1986 sequel to “Alien.”
Nevertheless, “Prometheus” is an ambitious and beautiful film. Its return to the art science-fiction cinema of the ‘70s and ‘80s is quite refreshing. “Prometheus” is rated R and is now playing in theatres nationwide.
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