So, I went to see Prometheus the other day and, being a bit of a fanboy, I felt that I had to chip in my two-penneth. Because, after all, that's just what the world wants and needs, isn't it? Another ill-informed amateur film critic weighing in on the subject of (one of) this summer's blockbuster movies. Well, regardless of whether the world wants it or needs it, that's what it's going to get and there will be spoilers ahead: consider yourself warned.
Given the weight of expectations, it was always going to be very hard for Prometheus to be anything other than a disappointment and, unsurprisingly, a disappointment is what it is. It looks spectacular - which is what you'd expect from a Ridley Scott film - but the story and the characterisations are, frankly, a muddle and if you want your movies to be more than just pretty to look at, Prometheus is going to leave you unsatisfied.
It's always interesting to think about why characters behave the way they do - what's their motivation. A "good" character is one whom we can understand, who seems like a fully fleshed out human being, with motivations and intentions that we can understand, if not agree with. Their behaviour in the story matches our understanding of those motivations - unless the writer is deliberately toying with us or, as in this case, has just not thought things through. Instead of acting on understandable motivations, people in this film behave they way they do (sometimes doing unbelievably stupid things) for the sake of the plot and with no thought to character coherence.
For instance, Rafe Spall's character Millburn is supposed to be a biologist. When confronted with an alien species displaying the same kind of behaviour as a pissed-off cobra, he thinks it's a good idea to try to stroke it. Why? Not because that's what a biologist would do in that situation but because the writer needs someone to get attacked by an alien. What's worse is that there's no particular purpose in that character being killed by the alien - the character just isn't needed any more, so it's written out.
Sean Harris's Fifield, who is with Millburn at the time, is also attacked and later comes back to the ship as a mutated version of himself. Why does that happen? It's not referred to elsewhere, it doesn't happen to anyone else, it's not coherent with anything else that happens in the plot. It's hard to escape the feeling that this happens to Fifield because there are a whole bunch of tertiary characters on the ship that we need to dispose of, so that we can focus on the main characters.
Speaking of whom, Logan Marshall-Green's Holloway has been searching for what he finds on LV223 for (we are lead to believe) his whole life. Is he pleased when he uncovers what would be, by any measure, the greatest archaeological find in human history - proof of sentient life that has arisen elsewhere? Is he buffalo; instead, he decides to get terrifically maudlin drunk. Why? Well, that leads us to the biggest non-sequitur in the movie which is tied up with the movie's biggest attraction.
I don't think Prometheus is very good but if you asked me whether you should see it, I would say yes - for Michael Fassbender's turn as David, the ship's resident robot. In much the same way Up and Wall-E did for their main characters, Scott gives Fassbender an almost silent five minutes or so near the start of the film to establish his character, as we see how David spends the two years of the journey to LV223 alone, while the human crew are asleep. It's a fantastic part of the film and sets the tone for a brilliant, charismatic performance. It's a sign that, somewhere underneath all the nonsense, there's a decent film - mainly starring David - straining to get out.
However, even poor David is given stuff to do that simply doesn't seem to make sense. Why does he infect the drunken Holloway with the alien gloop? Holloway then impregnates Noomi Rapace's Shaw, who has a miraculously quick pregnancy, conducts a do-it-yourself caesarean and then that whole sub-plot is forgotten until the end, when the alien removed from her can re-enter, almost deus ex machina, to accidentally save her.
In interviews, Ridley Scott has talked about how no one ever answered the question of the "space jockey" from Alien - who he was, how he got there and so on. The reason for that, Ridley, is that there's not much of a movie in it - you know what happens to him at the end. You don't have to answer every question left hanging from Alien - that's not film making, it's fan-fiction. One of the appeals of Alien, especially the parts set on LV426, is that there are so many unanswered questions: it's an alien ship - you wouldn't expect to be able to understand everything about it. Nor would you expect a human-made, decapitated android to be able to fly it, but don't get me started on that.
Alien is a special movie for me because it was the first "X" rated movie that I went to see at the cinema, at the tender age of 14. I love that film because it does what it does almost perfectly. It sets up a series of believable characters, places them in a confined space, and then knocks them down with great efficiency. Sure it goes a bit wonky at the end (although I'm not complaining about seeing Ripley's pants) but there was enough that came before to allow me to overlook the formulaic ending.
Sadly, that's just not the case with Prometheus. It could have been - and should have been - so much better than it actually is. With fantastically talented actors like Harris, Idris Elba, Fassbender and others, it is far less than the sum of its parts.
