REVIEW: Prometheus

Prometheus (2012): Dir. Ridley Scott. Written by: Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof. Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron. Rated R (Graphic violence and the appropriate swearing for such occasions). Running time: 124 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

In Prometheus, scientists land on a breathtaking world many millions of miles from Earth and, as is often the case, some pretty horrible things are waiting for them there.

A kind-of-sort-of prequel to the Alien films, Prometheus reveals its relation to those movies only loosely at first, mostly by borrowing their imagery and visual style, and builds a new mythology meant to coexist with the already established franchise. Knowledge of how all these parts from various films fit together is inessential to enjoying this one though and, at any rate, the mythology may or may not be too important. This is a straightforward sci-fi thriller wrapped in lofty ideas and a complex plot but its pleasures are relatively simple.

Onscreen text informs us the year is 2093 and that a crew of seventeen is onboard the spaceship Prometheus heading toward an undisclosed location. If you’ve seen movies like this before, not the least of which being the Alien films, you will recognize that seventeen is a large number of characters and that something bad will surely happen to at least a few (and quite probably many more) of them before the movie is over. Your intuitive suspicions will be reinforced when you learn that only a handful of these characters get substantial scenes and more than one of the supporting players are outright jerks. I trust you see where this is going.

Among the main characters are Elizabeth (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie (Logan Marshall-Green), archaeologists who discover a pattern in several otherwise unrelated cave paintings across the Earth. The pattern points to a distant galaxy where, they believe, they will find the intelligent beings that created humans some millennia ago. An aged billionaire (Guy Pearce underneath a lot of makeup) agrees to fund a mission that will send them and a crew of technicians and scientists to that galaxy (specifically one moon in that galaxy) to see if they can make contact. Leading them is an icy corporate overseer, Meredith (Charlize Theron).

Also onboard is David (Michael Fassbender), an artificial intelligence robot. While the crew slept in a cryogenic stasis for two years en route to their destination, David was awake, studying human culture (old movies, mostly) and learning ancient languages so that he may hopefully translate an alien-human conversation should there be one.

Noomi Rapace, the original girl with the dragon tattoo, is an intensely focused and amazingly resourceful heroine and Charlize Theron’s cold, calculating performance is a welcome reprieve from all the shouting she did in Snow White (I swear I could hear her in the theater next door). Logan Marshall-Green is a likable actor, though I don’t buy the character’s flippancy in the face of such monumental discoveries (or maybe Mr. Marshall-Green is just too ruggedly handsome to convincingly play a scientist). As the ship’s gruff captain, Idris Elba is a delightfully charismatic presence. It says something about a person when, after being cryogenically frozen for two years, the first thing he does is smoke a cigarette.

Michael Fassbender, however, steals the show. His tone of voice and facial tics always seem on the verge of showing emotions aside from the polite conviviality David has been programmed to convey. In a subtle way then, Mr. Fassbender’s performance gives depth to ideas the script only dances around regarding the extent of David’s humanity. We watch his reactions closely: Was that menace in his voice, or just the unsympathetic reasoning of a computer?

The script, written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, introduces a lot of enticing mysteries, including David, who seems to know something the other don’t. There is also the far grander question which Elizabeth and Charlie intend to ask when they meet their makers-in-question: If aliens created humans, for what purpose did they do it? And why leave clues in the cave paintings? The film gets a lot of mileage out of dangling these mysteries in front of us, though I am not sure they all get resolved in satisfying ways. Prometheus cares about its existential intrigue only so far and then it cares about the more obvious joy of watching humans get murdered by creepy-crawlies.

The score by Marc Streitenfeld creates a majestic mood as the scientists explore the alien moon and its runes, rightly characterizing their discoveries as the greatest in mankind’s history. But the characters don’t always see it this way. They’re too busy endangering their lives in all sorts of reckless ways. In their version of Earth circa 2093 are there no horror movies to teach them that they should never reach out and touch, much less taunt, an unidentified tentacle?

Prometheus is not without its sophistications, however. It is marvelous to look out and boasts one of the best production designs in a movie in perhaps years. Director Ridley Scott, who also made the first Alien, adds splashes of color to his earlier film’s rusty palette; consoles in the ship’s sleek interior light up yellow and purple.

There is also a wonderful attention to detail. Hours after waking from their two-year slumber the crew dons their spacesuits for the first time and their movements are understandably clumsy. When they try to cram into a small rover, their large helmets bump up against each other. Not many movies include moments like that.

Prometheus is tense and exciting enough that you do not mind that it neglects to answer every question it raises (or even most of them), at least not until you are well on your way out of the theater and discussing it. The elaborate backstory ends up being a little beside the point and I wonder why it was included if it was to be left undeveloped. There will probably be a second film that addresses the unsolved mysteries but am I the only one who wishes movies would just stand on their own without always setting themselves up for a sequel?

- Steve Avigliano, 6/11/12