Last night, at the urgings of one of my friends, my wife and I went and saw Prometheus. Having avoided just about every trailer and review ever, except for a few offhand remarks that ranged from "I love this movie!" to "Why does this piece of shit even exist?", I walked in with the following expectation: That it would be better than Aliens: Resurrection. Given that expectation, the movie performed as expected. HOWEVER...
This is not a good movie. I know, I know, I'll be annoying folks with that statement, but hear me out. This movie commits a cardinal sin of horror movies: It is boring as shit. This is an hour long tale that was stretched to fill two, and the movie suffers horribly for it. The basic story is not engaging enough to make me care about anything, so it feels twice as long as it should. A lesser sin that this film commits: It's not scary. Sure, there are a couple of jump scares, and some of the effects are neat and gross, but it's not scary so much as icky. There is build up to scary, and it COULD have been scary, but it's just not. It is just icky, and that is why this movie is not good. Now that I've said that, be warned thar be spoilers ahead!
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Okay, let's break this shit down. The opening credit sequence is lots of long shots of beautiful landscapes meant to evoke a "raw, untamed world" sort of feel. Then a creepy albino dude drinks a thing that does awful stuff to him, falls into a lake, and disintigrates into black dust that fades away. Others have stated this is meant to represent the alien beings seeding the Earth with the primordial soup that eventually results in the stupid apes known as human beings, but I would argue that any plan that involves "drink some weird shit and be dissolved" is a terrible plan. Consider my suspension of disbelief stretched a bit. This is also the first of many scenes that could be excised from the film with no loss to the story.
Next up is a quick scene that sets the plot for the film: Archeologist Couple finds evidence that People from Space (I call them Space Idiots) have been visiting our world for thousands of years and have left a clue to where they came from in the form of a "star chart that primative people couldn't possibly know about". Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, something about the Pyramids being impossible to build w/o spaceships...until someone figured out how to do it. Eh, whatever, neat premise, I'm hooked.
The next 10 or so minutes is actually a really really good characterization scene with the character David. David is a creepy, creepy android and maaaan does it show here. This scene calls back to the long shots of people doing normal, everyday stuff on the ship in 2001 and sets the mood of the film. Brooding, slow, and thoughtful. I liked this part immensely, and the actor (whose name I can't remember and am too lazy to look up) does a lovely job here and throughout the film. The acting in this film is actually pretty good, even if the story being told is padded as all get out.
Then we get the requisite "people out of hypersleep" scene that establishes Cherlize Theron's character as not only a bitch, but a hardass bitch. I enjoyed this character, and sort of wished she had been more developed. This is a problem we'll see throughout a lot of this film: Characters not developed enough for me to give a shit when terrible things happen around them or to them. Anyway, time to introduce our characters! The bright eyed-scientist dude (who I don't really care about), the bright-eyed scientist chick (who got ever so slightly more backstory, so I kind of care about her), The Mean Guy (dead as a doorknob), the Nice Awkard Guy (Dead too! Probably paired up with the Mean Guy), The Captain (Heimdall from Thor, also given a bit more development than the others, and probably the best overall character in the film), The Captain's Two Sidekicks (1 dimensional characters who end up being fun), and Random Nameless Extras We Don't Care About And Are Fodder.
Then we get the briefing scene that explains to us everything we already know that the crew of the ship doesn't know, and introduces another character that is obstensibly the driving force behind this but doesn't play a huge role in the film: Mr. Weyland, the Decrept Old Rich Guy Seeking Answers. Now that we have our players, it's time for a bit more development and some atmospheric shots that are well done. They also point out several Chekov's Guns (or Flamethrowers, or Lifepods, or RoboMedicalBays, or..). The first up close views of the Alien Complex are pretty cool, and the tech on display is pretty awesome. Truly the Future. Then they discover alien bodies, THe Mean Guy flips out and leaves, the Nice Guy goes with him, and everyone else gets science-y while David The Paranoid Android does Shady Things...For Science maybe?.
Blah blah contrived action scene. Then we're back to the ship for the revelation that Mean Guy and Nice Guy "got lost on the way back". This is really where I went "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa WHOA. You mean to tell me that with those awesome 3-D mapping robot things that TRANSMITTED A FULL 3-D MAP to the ship, AND have obvious locator beacons and CAMERA feeds...that these two idiots got LOST? My..ASS." Eh, fuck it, they are clearly fodder, because hey, gotta have somethign gross happen in a "No really it's not Alien...but it's Totally Alien" movie! Some science people do stupid science things, the Android does Horrible Thing to Bright Eyed Science Dude, and after a lot of boring stuff, the two Guys are eaten by a Space Cobras in a gratuitous death scene that is slightly squicky, but still kind of dull, because you totally see it coming a mile away. Oh, and the Captain and Cherlize Theron get it on off camera, thus leaving the death of the two Guys unwitnessed, because they don't have DVRs in the Future. /eyeroll
Next day it's time to go get the two Guys, Bright Eyed Science Dude (BESD for short) has an eye leech from the goo that David slipped him in a drink, and he's all "oh man, I'm freakin' out...but I'll wait until we discover the bodies first". They discover the Space Cobra, everyone freaks out, and Cherlize Theron flamethrowers BESD before he reenters the ship because "Holy shit, infected persons maybe shouldn't be let on board." This is supposed to show she is heartless, but I prefer to think of her as "smart" instead. Meanwhile, David the Paranoid Android has discovered that at least one more alien is in Space Hypersleep, and runs home to tell his "Mysterious yet Totally Not Mysterious at all" boss.
Time for pointless body horror! So, Bright-Eyed Science Chick (Or Liz as she is named in the movie) ends up lying on a medbay bed after watch BESD burn to death for being horribly infected. This is clearly traumatic, so David the Paranoid Bastard Android quizzes her about her sex life, and then lets her know she's 3 months pregnant with Horrible Alien Baby, all because she totally did it with BESD right after he was infected, ya know, last night. David's plan is "put her in cryosleep", which as we all know is a terrible plan. Then some nameless extras show up to prep her for the cryo bed, she beats them up...somehow, and runs to Chekov's BioBed to have a Space Cesarian. BioBed is like "LOL only dudes LOL", and is totally trolling her, but she does some Science Stuff and it all works out, even if it is horribly disgusting in every possible way. It is played for tension, but I just...didn't care? I mean, yeah, she's a total badass for walking around after MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY, but there is tension because...Horrible Tentacle Baby is angry at being pulled out. It's icky, but not scary...and merely sets up Chekov's Horrible Tentacle Baby for later. Oh, and Mean Guy comes back as a horrible creature for a pointless action scene.
For some reason, after going through HORRIBLE TRAUMA, she confronts Mr. Weyland (oh yeah, he was totally on board the whole time), and he reveals he's gonna go talk to the one alien left alive. Uh...kay. David will translate (they established how he could do that earlier, so it's cool). Long story short, that doesn't go well, Albino Alien is Not Happy, rips off David's head, beats Mr. Weyland to death with it, and then Cherlize Theron says "fuck this, we're out of here" while Albino Alien gets ready to leave. Somehow, Lizzy figures out he's going to Earth and not Going Home to Let Everyone Know "Hey guys, our horrible plan turned out horribly", and as the alien ship (oh yeah, it was a ship. NO FUCKING SHIT) takes off, the Captain and his Buddies get all Self-Sacrifice-y while Cherlize Theron ejects along with the LifePod. The ship crashes into other ship, which falls out of the sky...and then I just started laughing.
This completely dumb action sequence is the epitome of "fucking retarded". The ship falls out of the sky and lands on an edge...and starts rolling towards Liz and Cherlize. Who then RUN AWAY FROM IT IN A STRAIGHT LINE. I just started laughing, it was ridiculous. Anyway, Liz lives, Cherlize is crushed by the Rolling Ship of Murder, and just as Liz makes it to the lifepod (where she discovers Chekov's Horrible Tentacle Baby is now All Grown Up), David's Head informs her that Albino Dude is coming to kill her...because he totally knows where she is somehow. Seconds later, he bursts into the Lifepod and Liz sics her Babby on him and then flees. Horrible Tentacle Baby then proceeds to do exactly what you'd expect it to do in this film and Face Huggers the whole alien to death. Then the film doesn't end and I got sad.
So, Liz is now upset (and really, who wouldn't be). David's Head calls her and says "Oh, by the way, there are other ships on this planet. Uh, I can totally help you fly one." Liz then leaves, headed to find the Albino Guys and ask them "What the Fuck, yo?" Then the film doesn't end again, and I got sad.
So, back to Horrible Tentacle Baby and Albino Dude. Albino dude twitches slighly, and then (of COURSE) out of his body bursts a proto-Alien. Said proto-Alien was also way too big to fit inside Albino DUde without distorting the corpse, but really, at this point I was just glad to see the credits roll.
This is not a good film. It looks pretty. The acting is good (and in some ways, brilliant). The script is bullshit. It goes for some pretty heavy themes, but it ruins them with lots and lots and LOTS of padding and pointless grossness. There is so much of this film that could be cut and not change the story at ALL. The opening "seeding the earth" sequence. The ENTIRE sequence of Mean Guy and Nice Guy getting eaten by Space Cobras or turning into horrible monsters. The entirety of Chekov's Horrible Tentacle Alien Baby and the aftermath of it. This film is heavily padded and is full of "setup that did not deliver" sequences, ESPECIALLY regarding the Space Jockeys. It posed some really neat ideas, but failed to deliver them in a meaningful way. The character development was bad for all but a small handful of characters, and even most of those got the shaft. This film could have been great, but it collapses under the weight of its own hubris. On the other hand, the acting is excellent. The sets are awe inspiring at times. The special effects are pretty good (nice to see less CGI than usual), and I did think there were some deep themes. It was just presented poorly.
I give this film 1 frowny face on a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces, mostly on the strength of the David character, and the fact that the Captain played a squeezebox. It commits the twin sins of being boring and not scary, and that makes it a bad horror film AND a bad Sci-Fi film too.
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