{"id":3054,"date":"2012-05-31T08:37:04","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T14:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=3054"},"modified":"2012-05-31T08:37:05","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T14:37:05","slug":"prometheus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=3054","title":{"rendered":"Prometheus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Big things have small beginnings,\u201d says Michael Fassbender\u2019s Peter O\u2019Toole-mimicking android at one point in Prometheus. It\u2019s a wry observation on the way a single drop of blood is used to create much of the havoc that proceeds in Ridley Scott\u2019s eagerly anticipated return to sci-fi, but it could just as easily refer to the way Scott\u2019s Alien went from being a relatively low-budget B-movie with A-movie credentials to being the source of a world-conquering, multi-platform franchise that spawned some brilliant, so-so and some terrible sequels; two abysmal, mythology wrecking tie-in movies (Alien vs Predator and its equally bad follow-up); countless comic books and video games, and now, in Prometheus, one of this summer\u2019s biggest blockbusters.<\/p>\n

Yes, in case you\u2019ve been hiding under a rock on LV-426, this is Scott\u2019s \u201cDNA-sharing\u201d return to the Alien universe, and while the pragmatically minded director has never been particularly precious about his career-making breakthrough (in an interview with this paper nine years ago he told me he\u2019d happily make another Alien movie if the script was good enough), his pre-release unwillingness to acknowledge Prometheus as a direct prequel is possibly designed to avoid Alien trainspotters from over-analysing all the ways the two films don\u2019t quite synch up.<\/p>\n

That said, Prometheus is most assuredly an Alien prequel, one that uses a tiny, fan-boy favourite moment from that first film \u2013 as well as unused elements from the late Dan O\u2019Bannon and Ron Shusett\u2019s much-reworked original script \u2013 as a jumping-off point for a much bigger, more meditative and fairly bonkers science fiction film exploring the nature of our origins. Set in the late 21st century, the film begins \u2013 after a creepy, stunningly shot prologue \u2013 on Skye.<\/p>\n

There, the discovery of some cave paintings by Darwin-disputing scientists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her partner Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) provide the final piece in a puzzle that convinces near-death trillionaire Peter Weyland (an unrecognisable Guy Pearce) to fund an expedition into space to search for our makers. Along for the ride are a rag-tag assortment of skeptical scientists and money-oriented cannon fodder, among them Charlize Theron\u2019s coolly cynical CEO, Idris Elba\u2019s gruff Texan pilot and Fassbender\u2019s android, David.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s David who provides the most intrigue at first as he gets to wander the titular ship, improving his ancient language skills (not to mention honing his Peter O\u2019Toole impression with screenings of Lawrence of Arabia) while the rest of the crew slumbers in hypersleep. That he\u2019s not to be entirely trusted is, of course, a given thanks to the indelible impression Ian Holm made in a similar role in Alien. And yet, as with Lance Henriksen in both James Cameron\u2019s Aliens and David Fincher\u2019s Alien 3, Fassbender makes his non-human a fascinating and unpredictable character, not least because his very existence also underscores the playing-god theme of the plot.<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s patience in setting out the world in these early parts of the film \u2013 or reintroducing us to it in some cases \u2013 also helps distinguish Prometheus from the cut-to-the-chase tendencies of most sci-fi action films, even if the clunkiness of the dialogue does not (the script was co-written by Lost alumnus Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts, who wrote the recent sci-fi clunker The Darkest Hour). That it lacks some of the blue-collar authenticity of the original\u2019s \u201ctruckers in space\u201d approach, however, is a minor niggle given how brilliantly Scott uses his massive budget to visually expand a world we only got a small glimpse of last time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly a thrill to see those biomechanical HR Giger designs again on such a huge scale, particularly as they dwarf the characters while they explore the cavernous sets searching for the evolved species they believe created humanity. Here, Scott\u2019s decision to explain the origins of the so-called \u201cSpace Jockey\u201d, whose giant fossilised form John Hurt and co stumbled upon in the 1979 movie, provides the film with its main narrative thrust, but the film\u2019s real selling point is Scott\u2019s ability to recapture some of the nerve-shredding fear that defined Alien without simply replicating that film\u2019s signature shocks. There are variations on the iconic \u201cfacehugger\u201d and \u201cchestburster\u201d scenes, but crucially, they\u2019re not replicas of those scenes. Instead Scott finds new ways to ratchet up the tension, with the bloody and inventive alien birthing scene one character goes through being particularly gnarly and exhausting to watch \u2013 but in a good way.<\/p>\n

Despite the film making you feel as if you\u2019ve been put through the wringer, though, for all its big ideas it\u2019s not quite as revelatory as one might have hoped, with an ending that refuses to tie the film up with the original in a fundamentally important way, leaving the door open for a sequel. That might prevent it from being an instant classic, but for its duration, Prometheus is immensely satisfying.