The Engineers

Right ok so its time for another blagged post from my overstuffed tennis blog, which has a mish mash of different posts, and this one is for the science fiction film, Prometheus, directed by Ridley Scott, which is essentially a prequel to Alien.  At the time of the review, it had just came out in the cinema, and now low and behold it has just come out on DVD and Blu-ray as I type this, how about that???!  Anyway so here is the review taken from then, which I have updated a bit here and there, as I've since watched it again on Blu-ray (its amazing how time flies!!).  Oh and yes just to warn you: PLOT SPOILERS LIE AHEAD IN THIS POST!!!! 

The film starts with the crew of the spaceship named Prometheus being sent on a mission to find a race of ancient aliens on the planet LV223, the ship was built and funded by the CEO of the Weyland Corporation, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce).  Two of the crew members, Doctor Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her partner Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall Green) have discovered a star map, which leads them to the planet, in hope of finding out the answers to their existence, as they believe that the alien species they call Engineers, may have been responsible for the creation of humanity.  The crew go to the planet, travelling in cryogenic stasis, as the ship is manned by an android, David (Michael Fassbender), the other crew members include, Weyland employee, Meredith Vickers (the gorgeous Charlize Theron) and the Prometheus ship's Captain, Janek (Irdis Erba).

When the crew awake, they go out in groups, wearing spacesuits and helmets, due to the harsh and airless conditions of the planet surface.  The crew find an alien spaceship which they enter, and soon discover a chamber that is filled with strange pods, a monolithic statue of a giant head, and an alien corpse.  As a sandstorm whips up outside on the surface, most of the crew members abort their search of the ship ahead back onboard the Prometheus.  However two of the crew members who broke off from the rest of the group, Fifield (Sean Harris) and Milburn (Rafe Spall) are still trapped inside the alien ship, now lost, but on re-entering the chamber, the pods leek a black liquid, and the two men are attacked by snake like creatures.  Back onboard the Prometheus, David has taken one of the pods back with him, he opens the contents, which contains a strange gooey looking Cephalopod (an octopus in otherwords, just being a smarty!), he takes a sample from the pod.  David then speaks to Charlie and offers him a drink, and drops the sample into his drink, without Charlie's knowing, who soon becomes infected.  And before you know it, it all goes pear shaped, as the next day the rest of the crew go out to look for their two crewmmates, Fifield and Milburn in the alien ship, and on returning to the chamber they find Milburn's dead body, and David meanwhile searches the ship and finds a room containing an Engineer, one of the alien race, in stasis.  And from here things don't get any better.... 

As a much anticipated movie, which is basically a prequel to Alien, Prometheus does somewhat fall a bit short of the expectations it had in living up to Alien.  There are some good ideas in the film but it doesn't explain the origins of the alien creatures that well.  And the whole searching for answers behind why we are here, and who created us is a bit silly, as I think it would be better if they were just in search for alien lifeforms.  The alien humanoids themselves, or the Engineers as they are known, are also rather poorly realised, and later on the one that is awakened by David, is nothing more than just a heavy, which stalks and attacks the humans.  And the alien creatures, are like a bizzare octopus, and they are far from frightening or intimidating as the alien from Ridley's original classic was.

On a repeated viewing however, I did enjoy the film a bit more, and one or two things did click a little bit better.  The way I understand it now is the Engineers used the planet LV223 as a ground for their laboratory, in which they created the aliens, or biological weapons, but the aliens turned against them and killed, hence the one remaining engineers.  And the idea is that the Engineer intends to return to Earth with the cargo of aliens, so he can destroy the population of the planet and regrow it.  However if the aliens are such a threat to the Engineers, then why do they want to return to Earth in the first place??? As surely its as much a threat to them as it is to us, although it is made clear that the Engineers do have their own world, and this is basically just one nasty science experiment carried out on a barren desolate planet.  The bit at the start with the Engineer drinking the small cup of black liquid is initially a bit baffling as well, although he is basically sacrificing himself to create humanity using his own DNA.  And that is another dodgy bit in terms of the CGI, when we see the Engineer collapse as his DNA breaks down and his skin rots, its looks pretty naff.  Perhaps if however they chose to do a sequel at some point in the near future maybe all these unanswered questions can be finally answered.  It certainly has been left open for another film to follow.

Although on another repeated viewing I have a theory that as Shaw was impregnated with the first baby alien, then it shows that the humans were responsible for the creation of the alien creatures.  And perhaps the reason the Engineers wish to return to Earth is destroy the human population with the aliens, so that way the humans can no longer exist to create the alien race.  But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either!  In fact you could say one of the more infuriating things about Prometheus is how the filmmakers have tried to distance themselves from saying that it isn't a prequel to Alien, when clearly it IS a prequel, when it blatantly shows the events that lead up to Alien, when the big bagel shaped spaceship crashes on its side, as well as the giveaway nod to the very first new born "alien" at the end of the film!   

Performance wise, things are quite good, Noomi Rapace is very good in her role as Elizabeth Shaw, the doctor, who finds the star map of the aliens, and she does well in what is essentially a version of Ellen Ripley, the main protagonist, who has to fight for her survival.  Irdis Elba is also fine as the gritty Captain Janek, and Charlize Theron plays the duplicitous Weyland employee very well (and doesn't she look great in that outfit! Or any outfit for that matter!).  But the best performance comes from Michael Fassbender, who plays the android, David.  Its also a rather neat touch that while David appears to be totally logical and devoid of any emotional attachment, that he does appear to have moments of irritation, particularly with Holloway, who keeps taunting him for being an android.  David arguably could said to be the emotional black hole of the film as his biggest crime comes when he intentionally infects Holloway with a sample from the alien pod he took, which soon leads to Holloway's demise, but we do find out of course that ultimately David was just acting on orders.  Fassbender's scenes with Noomi are also excellent and some of the film's highlights, and he also shows signs that he does care about Elizabeth, and in the end they help each other out.  Guy Pearce also does well with his role as Peter Weyland, the CEO of the Weyland Corporation, and it took me a second viewing to even realise that it was him wearing that make-up as an aged old man!  His best scene comes where he sits with Charlize Theron who asks that he accept he is dying and that his time will end rather than try and find a way to extend his life, as she moves to hold his hand, he coldly recoils, and replies "anything else?". 

Ridley Scott, while he has made a few dull films of late, with Prometheus he has gone some way in redeeming that, as the film has some interesting ideas, visually it looks stunning, with some excellent CGI effects, although the aliens aren't that well realised, but the spaceships, the alien ships and the sets are all great.  The film also has one or two suspensful sequences, particularly the scenes where Filfield and Milburn are attacked, and the rather shocking scene where Shaw has a "foreign body" implanted in her, and she has to perform an emergency medical procedure on herself!  Its a scene you won't forget in a hurry!  Also worthy of note is Marc Streitenfeld's music score, which is mostly good despite one or two lesser passages (one of which is a cringe inducing nod to Jerry Goldsmith's score, in the scene where we see the hologram of Peter Weyland), but for the most part it is quite an effective, haunting and atmospheric score. 

So Prometheus is far from a disaster, and on a repeated viewing it is actually quite good, but it does have a few problems and doesn't make a whole lot of sense and while its nowhere near as good as Alien, it still is worth watching. 

And that's itttttttt.