“We’re Not From This Planet, Are We?” PROMETHEUS Review Two
As everyone knows “Prometheus” is Ridley Scott’s return to science fiction after almost 30 years since his masterwork “Blade Runner”. It’s also set in the same universe as his earlier film “Alien” which of course later became a franchise will 3 sequels. My personal favourite film in the series is David Fincher’s woefully underrated “Alien³” and in a way this is more similar to that than Ridley Scott’s original.
The story of “Prometheus” goes like this; It starts at the being of the earth with a alien being coming to earth and consumes a liquid which makes it disintegrate and fall into a waterfall which starts life on planet earth. It then fast forwards to near the end of the 21st century with the archaeologist couple Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green). They discover a series of primitive drawings of unconnected cultures which are depict the same star foundation. They believe this to be proof of a humanity’s forerunners.
Weyland (Guy Pearce) of the Weyland foundation funds the creation of Prometheus; which is a scientific space vessel which is on course to go to Moon LV-223. The human crew are asleep in hypersleep pods while the android David (Michel Fassbender) monitors them and in his spare time he models himself after the title character of “Lawrence of Arabia”. They arrive on the moon after a couple years in hypersleep and all told they are to find the engineers (the proto-human aliens) and their mission director Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) tells them not have direct contact and if aliens are found to return. They land near an alien temple and they go inside and find some remains of an alien civilization and than stuff happens….
The film does have horror elements like Ridley’s original. However it’s much more philosophical cause it deals with what it takes to be human in David’s case, meeting your maker, motherhood etc. It’s strangely much more similar to “Blade Runner” which of course deals with what it takes to be human. A lot of people have complained it’s not got enough horror but it’s not a horror film and much more a great piece of ideas based science fiction.
Michael Fassbender is truly astonishing as David. He has said based it off David Bowie’s performance as “The Man Who Fell To Earth”. He also watched “Blade Runner” and “Lawrence of Arabia” for inspiration. The film is really his’ and Ridley Scott is clearly much interested in his character’s development than the other characters. His performance is so well constructed as the robotic servant for the crew members but yet he shows emotion and almost is like a humanoid version of HAL from “2001”.
However the rest of cast especially Noomi Rapace as the female heroine Elizabeth. Charlize Theron plays a good ice queen Meredith. Guy Pearce has an interesting performance as Weyland. The characters are much less interesting than David but as I said it’s really about David’s character.
The film is absolutely gorgeous to look. H.R Giger who designed the original film did some work on it as well. It’s astonishing to see a film now which with it’s budget that has a perfect blend of CGI and handmade sets. There are a handful of just awe inspiring moments.
However the film does has a few slight script problems and holes. I was so engrossed into the film these minor issues didn’t really bother me. I think the film is a much more interesting film than the original “Alien” and I really hope the sequel will happen.
Ian Schultz
Rating:15
UK Release Date: June 1st 2012
Directed by:Ridley Scott
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Logan Marshall-Green, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba
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