Prometheus

I was recently accused of being overly-harsh on many of the films I see and of being too critical for my own good. I can only take this as a compliment and see it as proof that I'm doing my job correctly. In the case this week's film, I'm sure that I'll receive a tirade of comments from die-hard Alien fans objecting to what I'm about to say about Ridley Scott's Prometheus. Bring it on.

Perhaps the most highly-anticipated film of this year, Prometheus is a prequel to Scott's 1979 hit Alien, but is merely set in the world of Alien and not connected directly to the previous film's events. Prometheus follows a team of explorers who, in 2089, discover a series of clues on Earth which leads them to a planet in the darkest depths of space in an attempt to discover where humans came from. What they discover instead, however, is the possible end of mankind and they must fight to save Earth from destruction. Now, before we kick off, let's get one thing out of the way: I'm not a science-fiction fan. Maybe it has stemmed from my Mum who, after seeing Superman and asked what she thought of it, proclaimed that she found it “a bit far-fetched”. I don't know whether she was expecting a Ken Loach masterpiece but I kind of see her point. Don't get me wrong, films about fantastical events and characters (when done properly) can be stunning. But when things don't quite click, I end up rather uninterested by characters which I find hard to engage with. Prometheus, I'm afraid to say, suffers from this very problem.

Let's start with this characterisation which, at best, is rather patchy. A script by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof creates a large array of characters that, for the most part, are hugely under-developed and are about as dynamic as a can of baked beans. Many of the supporting characters didn't serve a function apart from being killed off (that's not a spoiler, if you didn't know people were going to die in this film then you need your head screwing on properly) and this resulted in a degree of apathy to the proceedings. More problematic, however, were the actions of characters and their motivations which I found to be totally bewildering. It's difficult to say what these were without giving away major plot points but suffice to say that the motives of the majority of the characters were as muddy as...well, mud. Away from these severe characterisation issues, the performances from Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender were accomplished and very watchable. Charlize Theron as Meredith Vickers, the stern and slightly creepy 'company rep' on board the Prometheus ship was also intriguing to watch but again, her character's actions with Idris Elba's captain of the ship were mystifying, as the script writers seemed to embark on minor plot strands and then forget all about them.

Science fiction is a genre centred around ideas and for a film about searching for answers, Prometheus is rather confusing and offers up more questions than it does solutions. The issues addressed in the script seemed to be slightly muddled, as if the screenwriters themselves weren't sure about where they were taking the plot and I felt that this was a fundamental problem which affected my enjoyment of the film.

In the same way that my Mum found a flying man slightly unbelievable, weaknesses in characterisation led me to be totally un-engaged with the plot unfolding before my very un-spectacled eyes (I saw the film in 2D, far better than its stereoscopic cousin). Prometheus is a visually-arresting film and contains some fantastic set pieces which were genuinely awe-inspiring. The world which Scott creates is both beautiful and at the same time bleak and the planet landscapes and interior set designs were very impressive. The film's breathtaking opening scene on a thunderous waterfall was apparently filmed on location with minimal use of CGI and this tells you just how much thought has gone into the film's visuals. On another positive note, the aliens were rather frightening and, although not totally horrific in the same way Alien was, there was one notable scene when I genuinely winced when things got a bit crazy (if you see the film, you'll know what I mean).

Prometheus, in the end, is a dramatically-staged mishmash of a plot which doesn't quite work and grand ideas which are never fully-realised. Strong performances and impressive visuals ultimately fail to overcome the narrative issues and characters which are about as engaging as an in-car air freshener. Scott's film is perfectly fine but this, in a way, is indicative of its failure: it should have been so much more. 

Clapperboard Rating: * * *