PROMETHEUS

Reviewed 6/08/2012

Prometheus poster

PROMETHEUS
DIRECTED BY: Ridley Scott
Genre: SCIENCE FICTION
Major Cast
Noomi Rapaceas archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw
Michael Fassbenderas David: an android
Guy Pearceas Peter Weyland: the old billionaire
Idris Elbaas Janek: the captain of the Prometheus
Logan Marshall-Greenas Charlie Holloway: an archeologist and Shaw's love interest.
Charlize Theronas Meredith Vickers
MPAA Rating:R
Distributor:Fox
Release Date (US):6/08/2012
Domestic Box Office:$126,464,904 (9/14/2012)
Foreign Box Office:$174,500,000
Production Budget:$130,000,000 (Est.)

PLOT SUMMARY

Archaeologists have been finding variations of the same drawing in tombs and on cave walls all over the planet. They all date to approximately the same time, and they are recognizably a star map. Based on this information, a very old and very rich man funds the construction of a starship and sends it off before he dies to the most prominent of the seven stars on the map. Its nominal mission: to make contact with the aliens responsible for inspiring the many drawings and learn from them the secret of human origin.

The ship arrives, the crew members awaken from cold sleep, and they immediately land the ship on the planet they're orbiting to begin exploring a toroidal structure on the surface. Inside they find hundreds of bodies and see blurry holograms suggesting some sort of battle. Soon it becomes clear that the aliens have DNA identical to ours. They must have created us! But there is also a virulently destructive goo that begins to affect some of the crew, and another hologram reveals that the toroid is a ship that was intended to drop the goo on Earth. They mean to wipe out their creation. The big puzzle is why. One alien is revived from a sleep chamber; he tries to resume his interrupted mission. In the climactic scene the Prometheus rams the larger ship and manages to disable it (meeting total destruction itself.) The lone human survivor takes another alien ship to search out their home world — and the answer to that burning question.

This plot summary is meant to be slightly sarcastic. There are a few questionable assumptions made by this film.

Actually, there are several big questions about the plot, premises, and characterization of this film — and a host of small ones as well. To mention just a few: why would the star maps left on Earth lead humans to what turns out to be a military base? Why would the supposedly benevolent aliens even have a military base? Why, if they created us, do they suddenly want to wipe us out? (Suddenly being some 2,000 years ago; that's how long the lone alien has been slumbering.) And why, if they're so advanced, do they do it this way — with a substance that wipes out virtually all animal life, and (oops!) managed to wipe out their own military garrison? We don't know the condition of their other worlds, but the fact that the base hasn't been recovered for 20 centuries is not a good sign.

There's a hilarious sendup of a review with one of the pair asking question after question while the other sits there dumbfounded. It's in that spirit that I continue. Why does the expensive surgical setup have only software for males? Software weighs next to nothing. (Or do they only want us to think it has no software for women?) How, when Shaw gets on the table with the creature inside her, is she able to direct the machine so precisely in surgery, so she survives? And how, a few minutes after having her abdomen cut open, is she able to get off the table, stay on her feet to stumble about the ship, and shortly don a spacesuit and run across rugged terrain outside with no apparent difficulty?

How does David know so much about the alien ship? We see him operating the controls right away to bring up all sorts of holographic displays. Why does the alien pilot have to unlimber a gun platform inside the ship? Why can't he just push buttons and tell weapons to fire through weapons ports? Why is the ship built so tough it can fall from thousands of feet and not be crushed on impact? How has everything stayed in working order after 2,000 years open to the elements on a very wet world? And why, since everything else operates perfectly, is the hologram of the running aliens so blurry?

Why do the crew members from Prometheus rush out of the ship before doing robotic reconnaissance? Why don't the scientists act like scientists?

To quote an old radio commercial for Tab Clear™:
"Know what your trouble is, kid? You ask too many questions!"

So how can Prometheus have the flavor of a science-fiction film and so completely lack scientific content?

My Rating:
4 out of 10

Capsule review: Despite gorgeous cinematography, beautiful set design, decent suspense and action, and competent performances (especially a properly eerie performance by Michael Fassbender and a very gutsy one by Noomi Rapace), this film is ultimately unsatisfying because its coherence leaks out through the many holes in the plot.

Backstop: For benevolent aliens, rent the DVD of Contact. Want malevolent ones? Look up Five Million Years to Earth. Both have the good qualities of Scott's latest film, plus a coherent plot.

IMDB Rating: 7.0 Raters: 454,022
1 Ridley Scott has gone public with an answer to this question: It's because we put a man from Galilee on a cross at Golgotha 2,000 years ago. That man was one of them, it seems. They decided we are incorrigible.
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