Prometheus (2012)

This review is spoilerific

It's time to call out Damon Lindelof.  The man who is half responsible for ruining the TV show Lost (if you think the show sucks, revisit the first two seasons; they hold up, despite what you know of the coming seasons) here nearly ruins the entire Alien franchise with an origin story that is very poorly handled.

I guess equal blame should be shouldered onto director Ridley Scott, who makes his return to sci-fi after a 30 year absence (poor Blade Runner must have scared him away from the genre).  Scott's visual style is fully intact, and he produces a film that's very pretty to look at.

But why I am so disappointed with this film?  I intentionally avoided all marketing for this film so I could see it with fresh eyes.  The plot was closely guarded, and I decided to respect Scott's wishes by not seeking out any info on this film before I saw it.  I was hoping to be surprised, swept away in a new, worthy addition to the Alien universe.

The film opens strongly, with a strange humanoid creature standing perched atop a cliff.  A spaceship takes off, and it drinks a strange black goo that kills it.  The idea presented that, whatever planet this is (earth, one assumes) this creature just gave life, and our origins come from it.

Fast forward to the end of the 21st century, as a crew sets out to that damnable moon where so much trouble occurred in Alien and Aliens.  There is an extensive crew who aren't briefed on their mission until they are awoken from a two-year cybersleep.  Me, I want to know what I'm signing up for before I dedicate 4 years of my life.

The main characters are Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), one of the scientists who still has faith for some reason; David (Michael Fassbender, always supremely awesome) the android in this film; Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), the representative for the Weyland corporation; and Janek (Idris Elba), the captain of the ship, Prometheus.  There's also other people.

Anyways, they somehow interpret the same pattern of planets in a bunch of ancient drawings to mean the creators of life came from these planets.  So with this sound theory, Weyland throws a trillion dollars at them to explore the farthest reaches of the universe.

So far the film had me intrigued.  But once the crew arrives at the moon (LV whatever), I had the sinking feeling we were in for something familiar.  And the movie quickly turns into a retread of Alien, with the scientists exploring the surface, exploring inside, and eventually crazy creatures attack and all hell breaks loose.

And this is why the film disappoints me.  It sets out with grand ambitions about the nature of human existence, and while I never expected the film to answer one of life's greatest mysteries, I was hoping for a more in depth conversation with our creators.  In the climax the characters finally come face-to-face with one of these creators, the humanoid creature from the opening (they are referred to as Engineers).  The creature is awoken, and without much hesitation, continues with what was an apparent plot to destroy the human race.

This is such a run of the mill, predictable, boring course of events.  Of course the movie instead might have featured an equally horrible scene where the Engineer tells everyone how horrible the human race has become, and that our extermination is essential because we have forgotten how to love or blah blah blah, and then proceeded with killing us.  If you can't come up with a good reason, I guess its better left unsaid.

But the film isn't all bad.  The planet is beautifully realized, and there are some genuinely tense scenes, including a nail biting cesarian section that takes the cake as probably the best sequence in the whole film.  Ridley Scott can still deliver tension, and I admire the man for that.  It's just unfortunate the movie doesn't add up to much.  It's fine to let your audience fill in the blanks, but when the audience has to fill in all the blanks, you didn't do your job.

But that brings me back to Damon Lindelof.  He is one half of the remaining show runner team for Lost, and one can make the argument that too many questions were posed in that show to get a satisfying answer too.  But Lindelof, I have news for you: there are questions that can't be answered, and then there's shitty writing.  Don't introduce a substance like the black goo if you're not going to tell us what it is, because that's about as lazy as the giant plug at the center of the island.  And I'm not letting Ridley off the hook either.  Mr. Scott, you have lost your touch.  Next time, fire your screenwriters and have a story that makes fucking sense.