Prometheus (2012)


Ridley Scott’s prequel to his Alien series is a philosophical sci-fi/horror hybrid. It looked beautiful at the cinema – the storm rolling in across an alien landscape was terrifying – but far less so on DVD. My favourite effect is when the investigators throw mapping hover-balls into the alien chambers and the laser/sonar-type scanning technology relays an instant 3D-hologram model of the caves back to the computers aboard the spaceship. Impressive. Plus, the hi-tech “self-surgery” scene is pretty harrowing.

There are some slightly baffling plot elements – why did old man Weyland of the Weyland Corporation have to hide on the mission he himself funded? – possibly to be clarified in subsequent instalments of the series. The film asks some Big Questions. Who are we? Why are we here? What is life? Is a creator the same thing as a god? Can we explain ourselves with science or do we still need religion?

Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender are tremendous in the lead roles. It’s a nice touch that the latter’s character models himself on Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, which he watches while acting as caretaker on the long voyage of the Prometheus.

Guy Pearce is much less convincing as a decrepit old man. Why not simply use an elderly actor? The worst aspect is the bit-part characters, crew members Millburn and Fifield, who are so badly drawn and one-dimensional that you know from the very beginning they will have to meet a horrible, untimely death. This is a weakness of so many films that you would have thought Ridley Scott would have been able to avoid such a standard pitfall. Imagine how much more powerful the story would be if those minor characters convinced you they were real enough to make you care.

Another thing that simply doesn’t work is the lack of precaution the scientists take. They remove their helmets while investigating alien lifeforms, gleefully unconcerned that they may be exposing themselves to something very nasty indeed. Maybe that adds drama but it also makes the plot less convincing, and anything that makes you question the credibility of what you are watching erodes some of the magic.

And finally, maybe I missed something, but if the aliens seeded life on Earth in the first place (as the archaeologists’ discovery of cave paintings seemed to suggest), why did they want to return with their sticky black goo as a toxic weapon? Or will that all be explained in Alien Covenant?

Overall, it’s engaging without being satisfying.