This is a film with
something for everyone. A little something positive, and a lot of things negative. How you weigh them is up to individual taste. It seems as though I come out a bit more positive than most SF fans, but, it's certainly with heavy reservations.
First things first - this
IS a prequel to ALIEN. Ridley Scott can pussy-foot around as much as he wants, but there a lot of official sequels/prequels to other film series that have much less in common than PROMETHEUS does with the ALIEN franchise. Yes, Mr.Scott, you have put in some curve balls and you don't want to see yourself as repeating past glories, but you made a Prequel to ALIEN. Get over it.
More importantly, the convoluted way in which PROMETHEUS was developed explains much of what is wrong with the picture. It has to exist in the ALIEN universe, yet, it wants to strike out into new and different territory. There are a number of interesting threads and tangents that PROMETHEUS explores. Unfortunately, the weight of ALIEN drags it back and forth like a cosmic game of tug-of-war. The last act in particular seems to be a patchwork of 3 or 4 different 'endings' all mashed into one.
Full Disclosure: I am not the world's biggest ALIEN fan. It's a very good SF film - tense, thrilling and full of good ideas. It's also highly derivative of monsters-on-the-loose films, most pointedly, IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE. Very good, but, not in the top tier of SF classics. Still, the best in its series with the nadir being ALIEN RESURECTION. And, hey, I even liked Part 3!
PROMETHEUS has the previous quadrilogy to deal with (and, maybe parts of the AVP films), but, it then bites off 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (and 2010) to boot! This is where I think the divide amongst SF fans really exists.
I, for one, really appreciate the attempt at thoughtful SF within a blockbuster franchise. Too many SF, Fantasy and Horror epics these days are little more than old fashioned action pictures dressed up with some SF trappings. Nothing wrong with that when it's done well, but, a steady diet makes one hungry for something weightier. Ray Bradbury's recent passing only emphasizes the point of how few really good films were made from his work - not to mention writers such as Asimov, Heinlein etc.. I am not comparing PROMETHEUS to the best of Bradbury's work, but, it at least toys with some fundamental concepts of what it means to be part of the cosmos.
For all that, I applaud PROMETHEUS. Unfortunately, there's the grinding draw of that old ALIEN plotline that mucks things up. As many have noted, the evolutionary chain has holes the size of black ones that don't quite add up. Mashing together so many divergent storylines makes a hash of character motivations. Noomi Rapace is solid, but her language limitations are noticeable. Theron is fine as the ice queen, but, it bogles the mind that the original intention was for her to play Rapace's role. Don't think that would have worked nearly as well. Michael Fassbender continues to be one of the best actors out there, even if his character's motivations are murky at best. I didn't even recognize Guy Pearce and the part would have been much stronger with the originally intended Max Von Sydow (of course, ANY film is better with Max!).
Did anybody else notice that they forgot to age Guy Pearce's feet in the scene where Rapace finds him on board?
PROMETHEUS is worth seeing, flaws and all. We are obviously invited to expect a sequel, but, PROMETHEUS' reception makes that not the sure thing it once seemed to be. Here's hoping Scott and company (he doesn't seem to want to direct a sequel himself) lean towards what works best in PROMETHEUS, and not give in to the commercial necessities of the ALIEN franchise.
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