Really, Ridley?! Alien: Covenant Is The Best You Could Come Up With?!

The Good: Directing and acting in the first third, Michael Fassbender's performance for most of the movie
The Bad: Entirely formulaic plot, Ridiculous reversals, Michael Fassbender's acting is too good to make the end convincing, Stupid, stupid characters, Emotionally unrealistic characters
The Basics: Alien: Covenant is an utter disappointment for anyone who loves the franchise . . . or movies in general.


For the past few months, the film I have been most excited about seeing has been Alien: Covenant. For sure, the Alien franchise (reviewed here!) has had some duds, but one of my strongest moments of cinephilic joy came in seeing Prometheus (reviewed here!) in IMAX 3-D. So, tonight, I schlepped out 85 miles to a theater with a 70 ft. screen to see Alien: Covenant. And, sadly, it was not worth it.

Alien: Covenant is, sadly, garbage. Everything that was good and clever in Prometheus is missing from Alien: Covenant. Everything that made Alien scary is passe in Alien: Covenant; the elements that made Aliens a great sequel seem cheaply recycled in Alien: Covenant. Even the darkness of Alien 3 that robbed fans of the prior episode's "happy ending" is presented in Alien: Covenant as a glossed-over, expository afterthought. The inventiveness of Alien Resurrection even is lacking from Alien: Covenant.

Sadly, by the point Alien: Covenant was made, the Alien-franchise films have developed into something of a formula. Introduce the characters and setting (usually Ripley), isolate the characters, introduce some form of the alien life form, the alien is hunted while the alien(s) hunt the human characters, drama with an android, someone makes it to safety . . . psych(!), resolution. Alien: Covenant only minimally challenges that well-established formula. In fact, the big differences of Alien: Covenant are pretty easy to define: this time the chestburster comes out the back, there are no real chestbursters (just tiny xenomorphs), and the aliens are not really the villains this time. And, apparently, Ridley Scott listened to the commentary track on Alien and decided to side with Veronica Cartwright; Alien: Covenant features a character actually making a good-faith attempt to communicate with the xenomorph and it positively responds. Take that, Tom Skerritt!

So, what actually happens in Alien: Covenant and why is it so bad?

Opening with David being brought online by Peter Weyland, David and Weyland discuss the nature of creators and the created. Leaping forward to ten years after the Prometheus disappeared and was presumed destroyed, the Company has sent the colony ship Covenant into deep space to colonize a distant world. The synthetic human, Walter, is acting as custodian of the ship, crew and cargo (colonists and embryoes) when a nutrino pulse cripples the ship, forcing him to wake up the crew. In the process, the captain is killed, leaving Daniels a widow and making the faith-based Oram Captain. While Tenessee is out fixing the solar collectors, his helmet intercepts a message. Returning to the Covenant, the crew works to decipher the message, but all they can do is identify that it includes John Denver's "Country Roads." Walter discovers that the signal came from a previously undiscovered planet that is both closer to Covenant's current location and is a better match for a human population. Given how the captain died in his cryotube, the crew is resistant to returning to sleep, so over Daniels's objections, Oram reroutes the Covenant to the new planet.

Arriving at the planet, the Covenant crew is surprised by the volatility of storms in the upper atmosphere, so they leave a skeleton crew aboard and take most of the crew down to the surface. There, they split up and two of the crew step on spores that they then become infected by. By nightfall, the two infected crewmembers are killed birthing xenomorphs and more of the crew is lost when their dropship is destroyed. When all looks bleak, the colonists are rescued by none other than David, who takes them to safety in a city that was once home to the Engineers. There, Daniels recognizes him as twitchy and she sends Walter in to learn the truth of what happened to the Prometheus and how he got to the alien planet in the alien ship. Soon, though, Walter's loyalties are tested as David's experiments using Engineer technology are slowly revealed and various xenomorphs start hunting the crew!

Alien: Covenant takes a lesson from, of things Alien Vs. Predator in that it includes facehuggers that impregnate at ridiculously fast speeds. That is paired with a first xenomorph style creature that gets huge very fast and skips the larval chestburster stage. And, apparently, people in the future lack a sneeze reaction.

Fundamentally, the big problem with Alien: Covenant is in the acting of Michael Fassbender. Fassbender is a great actor and he convincingly creates two distinctly different characters in Alien: Covenant in Walter and David. The problem is that he's such a good actor that he fails to sell the film's supposed big surprise reversal because of how he is playing his character. As Spock once noted: it's easier for an enlightened person to play a barbarian than for a barbarian to portray an enlightened. By similar extension, it's much harder for the mad scientist to play the lovelorn android than for the loving synth to play the madman.

Finally, many of the characters in defy sensibility. I like a good satirical commentary on the intelligence of people who make decisions based primarily on faith, but Oram is played as just plain stupid (sorry Billy Crudup!). Having encountered David cozied up to a xenomorph (who looked like it was designed by Guillermo Del Toro), Oram follows David literally into the dark basement. On the commentary track for Prometheus, the writers discuss how they were painfully aware that they had characters walking into the (figurative) haunted basement, so they worked hard to make that apparent defiance of reason character-driven. And it works. There is no such attention to detail or reason in Oram's decision.

The surprises in Alien: Covenant are often more obvious than surprising. Ridley Scott telegraphs a lot of the big moments and makes explicit almost everything in the film in a way that diminishes the mystery that Prometheus established well. In fact, the only element that is not overly-explained (arguably) is that the recorder David and Walter play is made of bone and probably came from Elizabeth Shaw's corpse. But, Scott didn't need to make that explicit when he has David holding it like a weapon when the object is taken out of frame. Does Scott truly think that the audience is so stupid they've forgotten it is in David's hand?! And while there is a lot of carnage in Alien: Covenant a lot of it happens so fast that its graphicness is undone by the speed of the effects.

Alien: Covenant has a few good moments, but the promise of its opening scene is that it will be philosophical and/or clever. But the moment the first whatever-morph appears on screen, Alien: Covenant degenerates into an over-the-top bloodbath orchestrated by a mad scientist and it stops being satisfying, smart or even enjoyable unfortunately early.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2
Colossal
Life

3.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Dregs Of The Future Travel Down The Road To Bore Viewers!

The Good: Wonderful direction, Good acting
The Bad: Pacing, Lack of plot developments, Unlikable characters
The Basics: The Road is a good idea with a troublingly drawn-out execution that is unfortunately disappointing.


A few years ago, before my move to Michigan, I had a good friend who was a local librarian. He was one of the early supporters of my writing career and he even helped to fund one of my early script projects, which was pretty huge for me. While we only managed to go out to the movies once, for Inkheart (reviewed here!), but we talked quite a bit about films and television shows. Near the end of his life, he was on a post-apocalyptic movie phase and when he recommended Doomsday (reviewed here!) to me, there was an additional sense of disappointment for me because I had gone into it with such high expectations given that my friend had recommended it to me. The last film I recall him raving about was The Road, so when it, too, disappointed me, I once again felt let down.

The Road is a dark film set after an unnamed apocalyptic event. Focused intimately on a father and a son, the movie is well-directed and well-acted, but is boring as all hell. The Viggo Mortensen vehicle is based upon a novel by Cormac McCarthy and it is worth noting up front that I have never read the book. This is a pure review of the film and I have to hope that some of my friend’s love of the film was because of his affinity for the book.

Out in a wilderness where all of the vegetation and animal life has died, a man and his son are making a treacherous journey south. Following the last direction given to him by his wife, the man has struggled to protect his son as they head toward the coast. The threat of starvation is as real as the menace of cannibals, which is made explicit when the pair encounters a band of thugs. When one of the thugs starts looking at his son like a food source, the man shoots him, which forces the boy to question whether or not they actually are the “good guys.”

Further down the road, the pair discovers a house with a secret room, locked from the outside. Investigating, they discover the basement is filled with people who are being kept by the home’s owners as a food source. As they near starving to death, the pair finds a bomb shelter stocked with food. But when they hear what the man believes is a bandit one night, they leave the shelter. Continuing toward the coast, the two find themselves beset by thieves, archers, and are forced to choose between survival and protecting their humanity.

The Road spends a huge amount of time establishing mood and setting, as opposed to developing a story or even creating a compelling character journey. To that end, director John Hillcoat does an exceptional job of exploring the setting. The colors are muted, gray and brown, save in the flashbacks which are bright and golden. The food the men find is also presented in vivid colors, but the rest of the film is dirty, torn, and barren for its people, clothes, and landscaping. The Road has a realistic presentation of a decimated world that is populated by people who have reverted to the worst aspects of human nature.

Unpleasant to watch, The Road lacks the character, depth of relationships or even the plot developments of other wasteland stories, like The Walking Dead. Instead, The Road has two thin people encountering weak, frightened, equally skinny people who react with hostility and fear to the protagonists. The man is scared of everyone and everything and the constant reminder that he carries a gun so either he or the boy can off themselves quickly becomes tired.

The performances in The Road are good, even when the characters are somewhat bland. Viggo Mortensen is unsettling in the role of the man, though he plays the part with an uprightness in the flashbacks that makes it seem like he was a good man. He and Charlize Theron, who appears only in the flashback scenes, actually have very little in the way of on-screen chemistry. Their relationship raises two mysteries for the viewer: how did the man and the woman stay alive for years after the birth of the boy in the same place and how did they stay together when the world ended?

In a similar fashion, actor Kodi Smit-McPhee is so convincing as the whiny boy that it makes the viewer wonder “How did this kid get such a thin skin when he was born into the horrible world or death and cannibalism?” Smit-McPhee and Mortensen play off one another in a convincing-enough fashion to make the viewer believe that they would cling to one another with what passes for hope in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Smit-McPhee actually comes into his own opposite Guy Pearce at the climax of The Road. The child holds his own opposite an almost unrecognizable Pearce with an intensity that is surprisingly adult.

Sadly, it is not enough to save The Road. The Road is boring when it is not being intense, gory, or utterly disturbing. What The Road is not is entertaining. Instead, the film provides a cognizant argument for killing oneself at the outset of the apocalypse. After all, who would want to live in a world like the one shown in The Road?!

For other works with Charlize Theron, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Prometheus
Snow White And The Huntsman
Young Adult
Hancock
Arrested Development - Season Three
Aeon Flux
15 Minutes
Reindeer Games

3.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Tough Sell Of The Independent Film: Hateship Loveship Has Good Components For A Cliché Story.

The Good: Kristen Wiig’s performance, Decent direction, Moments of realism
The Bad: Storytelling gaps, Oppressive mood, Unremarkable and uninteresting characters
The Basics: Despite a strong last third, Hateship Loveship remains a difficult-to-watch, awkward film with pretty stellar performances and direction.


As the weekends devolve into blockbuster releases that generally trade on spectacle over substance, I find myself turning toward independent cinema with the hope of seeing worthwhile movies. To that end, I took in Hateship Loveship this afternoon. Hateship Loveship is the latest Kristen Wiig vehicle and the indie film follows Wiig’s post-Saturday Night Live career. Wiig seems to alternate between taking reliable blockbuster projects and independent films (like Girl Most Likely). Wiig seems to be determined to get taken seriously as an actress and in Hateship Loveship there is no hint of any of her goofy comedic characters that made her so successful as a sketch comedy performer. Come to think of it, even in Bridesmaids (reviewed here!), Wiig presented a more serious character; the zaniness occurred around her serious character.

Hateship Loveship is a straightforward drama and Wiig is wonderful in the movie, even if the film is not a spectacular story. In fact, were it not for the quality of the performances, the moody movie would probably have been relegated to the deepest reaches of Indie Cinema Hell and never even released on DVD. As it is, between Liza Johnson’s direction and Wiig and Guy Pearce’s performances, Hateship Loveship is compelling to watch, though the story’s stark realism is often difficult. The film is based upon a short story and it is worth noting that I have never read that short story, so this is a very pure review of the film Hateship Loveship, unencumbered by any comparisons or preconceptions of what the movie was “supposed” to be.

Opening with Johanna Parry attending to the last moments of an elderly lady and then dealing with the hospice of the body after her death, Parry is set-up with another family for her next job. Johanna moves in with the elderly Bill McCauley, who has a complicated relationship with his widower son-in-law, Ken (who is about Johanna’s age and has a daughter, Sabitha). Sabitha and her friend, Edith, are virtually inseparable and when Edith refuses to let Ken drive her home one night, Johanna peeks in on a conversation between Ken and his father-in-law to learn some of the complexities of their relationship. Parry feels very separated and detached from the family in which she is now working (and living); she has a more natural dialogue with McCauley than she does with Sabitha (whom she is supposed to look after).

When Ken includes a brief note to Johanna in with one of Sabitha’s letters, Parry leaps upon the communication with an eagerness that she does not have for anything else. She immediately writes Ken back, but hands Edith the letter to mail. Edith and Sabitha read the letter and begin corresponding with Johanna as Ken . . . After a fallout between Edith and Sabitha, Edith continues to impersonate Ken via e-mail, with Johanna getting increasingly invested in the online relationship. That leads Parry to Chicago to try to find Ken. There, she finds Ken strung out on coke, living in the run-down motel he bought and promised to fix up using McCauley’s money. Learning that Ken does not even have a computer, Johanna is shocked, but she stays with Ken and begins fixing up the motel so he has the chance to turn his life around.

One of the striking aspects of Hateship Loveship is how long it takes to establish the characters (if not the mood). Eighteen minutes into Hateship Loveship, Johanna and Sabitha have not really had any scenes together to make one believe they have been interacting. So, the idea that Parry is Sabitha’s nanny pretty nebulous and underdeveloped until the plot contrivance from Sabitha and Edith comes into play. When Sabitha and Edith begin writing to Parry as if they were Ken, there is no apparent motivation and the act seems instantly cruel (especially for teenagers who are old enough to know better). It calls into question just what type of movie Hateship Loveship will be. Fortunately, the plot contrivance of the teenagers impersonating Ken is pretty much over by the midpoint of the movie and the mood piece continues as a stark and off-putting character piece.

Johanna Parry is competent and caring, but immediately sheltered and socially-awkward. Guy Pearce’s Ken is charismatic and smart enough to be believable (he figures out almost instantly that the girls were likely responsible for the e-mails Johanna received). The characters in Hateship Loveship are anything but moral absolutes. Johanna, despite seeming entirely sheltered and somewhat naïve (especially about Ken’s drug use and romantic relationships), appears to think nothing of stealing the furniture that belonged to Bill’s daughter (which McCauley covets and keeps in the garage) and paying to have it shipped out to Ken’s motel. Parry is educated; she seems to be a competent home healthcare worker, but even there her character is inconsistently defined. Parry cares for Mrs. Willets from age fifteen until the old lady’s death, so how and why she makes a transition into working with a young person is an abrupt transition for the audience to make. Ken has all of the erratic qualities of an addict and the viewer watches as he flounders around trying for redemption as he turns toward Johanna and away from his druggie girlfriend, Chloe. To the credit of Guy Pearce, while the viewer might be ambivalent as to what they want to see from Johanna, Pearce makes the audience root for Ken to succeed and turn his life around.

Director Liza Johnson does very well with the fractured script she is given. Hateship Loveship would be a dud – it starts off with so many characters and threads, like the relationship between Sabitha and Edith that has so much potential before it falls out of the film completely for the middle third of the movie – were it not for the caliber of the acting and Johnson’s direction. Johnson not only gets a serious performance out of Kristen Wiig that is spectacular (the scene where Johanna practices kissing herself on the mirror could easily have turned into a comedic moment of utter farce, but Johnson keeps it tight and Wiig lands the moment dramatically), but she holds on the characters and their emotional expressions for enough time to truly flesh out the realism of their emotions. When Parry learns that Ken does not have e-mail, Johnson captures the shock and realization on Wiig’s face without her saying a word.

Hateship Loveship is a good example of how the production end of a movie matters less if one does not start with a strong script. Wiig, Pearce, Nick Nolte (McCauley) and Hailee Steinfeld (Sabitha) might all do wonderfully with the characters they are given and Liza Johnson captures their performances well, but the story is not a particularly compelling or original one and it contains significant gaps. The story leaps almost immediately from Parry moving in with McCauley to weeks later (with no scenes that have interactions between Johanna and Sabitha) and has an abrupt fallout between Edith and Sabitha and a plotline with Bill and the bank teller, Eileen, that seems thrown in just to justify the expense and presence of Nolte and Christine Lahti in the film. Hateship Loveship has a number of trademark indie film moments: Ken tries to turn his life around by throwing away his drugs, but ends up doing some of the coke off the toilet seat in one of the film’s most telegraphed moments.

Despite the oppressive mood throughout, Hateship Loveship recovers much of its watchability in the film’s last third. As Johanna and Ken begin to forge a real relationship, Hateship Loveship becomes watchable, even if it is never really enjoyable. But that, too, is the hallmark of many independent films; Hateship Loveship captures that stark realism of people struggling to survive and relate. Despite the initial, sometimes problematic or cliché, conceits, Hateship Loveship recovers well and is worth watching once for all it gets right.

For other works with Nick Nolte, please check out my reviews of:
Hotel Rwanda
Hulk
U Turn
Nightwatch

4.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Much Tougher Sell Of Iron Man 3

The Good: Great effects, Good pacing, Moments of character.
The Bad: Nothing audacious on the acting front, Somewhat predictable.
The Basics: Kicking off the next round of Marvel Universe movies, Iron Man 3 is an awkward continuation to the story of Tony Stark as Iron Man.


Even as a fan, as a general rule, of super hero films, it is hard not to go into Iron Man 3 with a sense of trepidation. After all, Iron Man 3 follows The Avengers (reviewed here!) and with that being a sweeping film with world-shaking, epic consequences that required a whole team to thwart, it seems like it would be a step back to return to a single hero doing his own thing. The danger, of course, coming off a film like The Avengers is that the threat to the character is difficult to create in a compelling way. If the hero finds themselves overwhelmed, the audience will naturally ask, “Why doesn’t Tony Stark just call his Avengers buddies back up to help him?” (One can almost hear Thor complaining to his swordmates about the folks with fantastic powers he fought with on Earth, lamenting that his old friends from Asgaard seem pretty stale by comparison.). Conversely, if the threat is not big enough, it is virtually impossible to care. Iron Man 3 effectively wrestles with those problems by working Tony Stark to the point where he is forced to accept that no man, least of all him, is an island.

IronMan 3 straddles the problem by focusing, as much as possible, on Tony Stark – the man outside the suit. The result is a film that makes what appears to be the secondary villain, in this case Aldrich Killian, more important as the villain who is initially characterized as the primary. Just as when Batman Returns (reviewed here!) was initially released, the hype surrounded Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer, but going back and rewatching the film now, it is Christopher Walken’s Max Shrek who stands out as having a surprisingly large presence in the film, Iron Man 3 seems to be hyping Sir Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin, when it is Guy Pearce’s role as Aldrich Killian who actually has a substantive adversarial role in the movie. Just as in Iron Man 2 (reviewed here!), Tony Stark had to contend with Justin Hammer as a business competitor, Killian appears in Iron Man 3 developing technologies that unsettle Tony Stark and Pepper Potts (who is running Stark Industries).

Following the attack on New York by Loki and his interstellar minions, Tony Stark returns to his life with the feeling that his life is not all it can be. Having been a part of a team, Stark seems to realize that he is not the sole Alpha in the world and that leaves him unsettled. As he works on developing a new thought-responsive Iron Man suit, the United States is rocked by attacks from the mysterious terrorist, The Mandarin. In addition to shooting bombing Mann's Chinese Theater - an attack which seriously wounds Happy - the Mandarin marshals forces that level Tony Stark’s mansion. Maya Hansen, who confides to Pepper Potts that she believes her boss, Killian, is working with the Mandarin, uses the confusion following the attack on Stark's mansion to abduct Potts. Stark’s ally Rhodey comes to the defense of the United States as the newly revamped Iron Patriot.

With Stark adrift in Tennessee, looking for the origins of the Mandarin when he finds that some explosions domestically mirror the heat signatures from the Mandarin's untraceable bombs, Rhodey falls into the trap laid by the Mandarin. But in tracking the Mandarin, Tony learns the villain is not all he appears to be and the real adversary has built an army even he alone cannot hope to stop.

Iron Man 3 is satisfying in that there are real consequences to Tony Stark’s ego lingering from The Avengers. Stark is shaken and moody and his relationship with Pepper Potts has not solved all of his emotional problems. The time that Iron Man 3 spends focused on Tony Stark’s internal struggle is time well-spent. Stark makes for a compelling character when he is not brazenly baiting the Mandarin or being a cocky douche to Killian (by now, shouldn’t Stark realize that other people are up for the same contracts and have their own ideas on how to save the world?!), the movie presents that well.

Unfortunately, for those looking mostly for the compelling character study, Iron Man 3 is far too erratic. Instead, the movie turns to plot twists pertaining to trying to find the Mandarin (and later in the film, Pepper Potts), staving off A.I.M. and Killian, and making the film action-packed with big aerial battles and conflicts that degenerate into familiar chase/combat sequences. Those bits are certainly good, but they are hardly substantive or surprising. In fact, the action sequences in Iron Man 3 - while technically adept with the CG-effects – are hardly the most thrilling seen in a Marvel-based movie (or even an Iron Man film!).

As for the acting, it is a decided mixed bag. I was excited to see one of my perennial favorites, William Sadler in the substantive, but too brief role of Sal Kennedy. Sadler has the bearing and innate dignity to play the President and to see him do so in Iron Man 3 was a real treat. In a similar vein, Guy Pearce is good as Killian. Coming off Prometheus (reviewed here!), where he played an aged genius industrialist, Killian is hardly a stretch for his performing talents. Still, he fills the role well and he holds his own as far as gravitas opposite Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark very well. Moreover, Pearce and co-star Rebecca Hall (Maya Hansen) play off one another well. Their interplay makes their professional relationship entirely credible.

Sir Ben Kingsley is appropriately formidable as The Mandarin. While I usually associate him with the strong dignity of Gandhi, the anger and menace he presents as The Mandarin seems entirely unsurprising and well within the emotional range he can convincingly present. Kingsley makes for a good villain and the twist he presents is credible due to his performance. Even so, like so much in Iron Man 3 his performance seems familiar and smooth as opposed to surprising and new.

As for the rest of the performances, they are fluid and familiar. Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow are returning for their fourth times as Tony Stark and Pepper Pots. Don Cheadle retakes the mantle of James Rhodes, War Machine, Iron Patriot in a seamless way and Jon Favreau makes it through his scenes as Happy Hogan without projecting an attitude like “I could have directed this” (Shane Black directed this outing). All of them are good, but for Iron Man 3 they are hitting the consistency of returning to the screen characters who are more familiar than growing in challenging new ways.

Ultimately, Iron Man 3 will do what fans expect and it makes for a good action-adventure thriller, but it is lacking in a timeless quality that general moviegoers might want for their $8 (or more)!

For other movies based upon the Marvel comic books, please check out my reviews of:
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One
Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance
Captain America: The First Avenger
X-Men: First Class
Thor
The Incredible Hulk
Spider-Man 3
Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
Blade: Trinity
Elektra
Daredevil

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

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Lucking Into Masterpiece, The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus Details How Prometheus Was Developed!

| | | The Good: Amazing detailing, Very thorough
The Bad: Some of the camerawork, A few notable missed opportunities
The Basics: An intense documentary for fans of Prometheus, The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus is more than just a bonus feature!


Love it or hate it, Prometheus was a mammoth cinematic undertaking and it is a pretty ballsy idea. At its heart, Prometheus is essentially a two hour film to explain a model/set piece seen for under three minutes in Alien. To capture the incredible process of creating Prometheus, director and documentarian Charles de Lauzirika created the documentary The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus. Personally, I was pissed that the only way I could get all of the bonus features for Prometheus was with the four-disc version of the film. I do not yet have a 3-D Blu-Ray or 3-D television, so having to shell out five dollars extra for a disc that I could not even play, irked the crap out of me. That was until I watched The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus.

The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus is the cornerstone of the exclusive disc available only in the four-disc version of Prometheus (reviewed here!). The documentary, The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus is a three hour, forty-one minute presentation that explores every aspect of the creation of the film Prometheus. Having excitedly watched the documentary twice now, all I can really say is: 1. Wow! John Spaihts got screwed, and 2. Wow! How could such an incredible film come out of such a haphazard creative process?!

To be fair to director Charles de Lauzirika, it is tough to create an enduring and interesting documentary on a film. Far too often, any form of documentary on the creation of a film is a ten to twenty minute featurette designed to help sell the DVDs to fans who crave exclusive content. The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus takes some cues from the successful documentary Lost In La Mancha (reviewed here!), which documented the collapse of a Terry Gilliam film. The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus successfully explores the genesis of Prometheus from the earliest concept aspects through the promotional material.

While pitching to executives at Fox, writer John Spaihts was asked about revisiting the Alien Universe and began generating ideas for director Ridley Scott, who was interested in returning to science fiction and that particular universe. Very shortly thereafter, Spaihts, Scott, and a visualization team began creating the film that would evolve into Prometheus. With production ramping up, the studio got nervous about using Spaihts’s work alone and Damon Lindelof was brought in to rewrite the script, working closely with Ridley Scott.

With the production design visualized for the entities, vehicles, ships, and equipment of the film, Prometheus was cast, the film was shot, and a massive, viral marketing campaign launched in order to make it one of the most anticipated films of 2012. The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus explores every aspect of that.

The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus is impressive in its level of detail. Elements like the process of designing the giant transport vehicle that came out of Prometheus create an unparalleled level of documenting for a modern film. Director Charles de Lauzirika managed to get some incredible footage of behind-the-scenes moments from the preproduction materials through the casting and alternate takes of scenes. The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus actually makes Prometheus seem like one of the great “happy accidents” of modern cinema. De Lauzirika captures amazing footage of writer John Spaihts and Ridley Scott who discuss the creation of Prometheus in a way that makes it clear that production was very much under way before anything remotely resembling a finished script was prepared! Prometheus, then, was far less about telling the story it ultimately came up with, than it was justifying an evolution of various alien creatures on screen!

With impressive candid footage of the incredible process Noomi Rapace went through to create Shaw and get the look and feel of the character right, The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus has great footage of all of the cast members and it manages to be entertaining as well as incredibly informative.

What The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus lacks is probing questions and a real sense of curiosity from the filmmaker. This film is, unfortunately at times, a very pure documentary. Charles de Lauzirika does not ask (or use footage if he did ask) about what many of the participants actually think or feel about what they are going through. Spaihts, for example, talks about how he was not surprised to have the project taken out from under him, but he never says how he actually felt about it. He expresses no dissatisfaction with the fact that what he wrote was radically altered by Damon Lindeloff. Similarly, de Lauzirika never gets Ridley Scott to open up on his deeper motivations for taking on Prometheus. Long before the film had a spiritual component, Scott was creating it and his only real solid idea, as detailed by The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus, was that he wanted the H.R. Geiger-designed “space jockey” to be a suit for something that was human beneath.

What is missing from The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus are the probing moments or even using fully what de Lauzirika had access to. The best example of missed opportunities comes when de Lauzirika captures H.R. Geiger’s visit to the production offices, Ridley Scott speaks for Geiger. How de Lauzirika could not get Geiger to talk about his thoughts on what Scott was doing weakens that portion of the film.

Ultimately, though, The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus is far more than a DVD bonus feature. It manages to not repeat too much of what is already present in the DVD commentary tracks on Prometheus and the documentary has wonderful bonus features of its own. Loaded with “Enhancements,” The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus gives the viewer the option to see featurettes within the documentary that provide additional material – especially in the artwork department – that will keep Prometheus geeks entertained for hours and hours on end.

Informative and educational, The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus is enough to satisfy fans and convince Prometheus detractors that an exceptional amount of thought went into developing the film, regardless of the results!

For other Prometheus-related reviews, be sure to check out my takes on:
NECA’s Prometheus Engineer (Chair Suit) Action Figure
NECA’s Prometheus Engineer (Pressure Suit) Action Figure
The Alien Quadrillogy

6.5/10

For other film reviews, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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With Factory Girl, I Swear Off Biopic Fiction For A While

The Good: Acting, Moments of movement
The Bad: Utterly unlikable characters, Lack of plot, Uneven pacing, Not as advertised
The Basics: Can't the bottom line, just once, be "This is a bad film, not worth your time?"


First off, I've come to hate reviewing films that are supposedly fictional biographies of people who have ever been alive. The reason I hate this is invariably, people get mixed up with the review and its critique being about the actual person who is the subject of the biopic as opposed to the character presented on screen in the film I am reviewing. I know nothing about Edie Sedgwick, the subject of Factory Girl, so when I reference her, I am writing solely about the character presented in this film. The second thing one ought to know off the bat is that anytime a movie needs to advertise that it's sexy (or in this case: "SEXY. UNCUT. UNRATED.") I feel a bit wary. The last film I saw that was truly sexy was Bound (reviewed here!) and no one had to tell me it was sexy. Finally, I've seriously come to resent reviewing DVDs of films I find I do not enjoy. There's something offensive about having to check out the DVD bonus features to write a thorough review on a disc for a film that bored the crap out one anyway. I mention this because I'll openly admit I didn't make it all the way back through Factory Girl with the commentary on; I just couldn't do it. What I heard didn't make me appreciate the film more, I was done with it.

Edie Sedgwick, wealthy trust fund girl, finds herself in New York City in the early 1960s where she meets Andy Warhol, who is instantly taken with her. Warhol puts her in one of his artistic, underground films and she is soon on his arm all around town, promoting Warhol's art and not being paid for it. Soon, Edie is into drugs, Warhol has moved on and Edie's mental health and finances are on the verge of a collapse.

And by that time, the audience doesn't care.

Seriously, the most interesting moments in Factory Girl all come before or as Edie and Warhol meet. Why? Because at that point in the film, Edie is an artist looking for a break who glides into the New York City art scene with a cute little shimmy and the dialogue between her and Warhol when they meet is quirky, weird and surreal. It's all downhill from there.

There comes a point fairly early on in the film when Edie's fortunes begin to change while she helps Warhol's stature and sales increase where she approaches Warhol for money for her work and he turns her down. No compelling reason is given for why she does not walk at that point. The two aren't intimately close, he's done nothing for her career and, in fact, she doesn't seem to be having all that much fun with him. The character makes no real sense and soon she degenerates into (essentially) a crack whore (yes, I know the difference between speed, heroin and crack, but no one calls them 'heroin whores,' though it does have a pretty good ring to it). If I wanted to see that, which I don't, I'd watch Requiem For A Dream (reviewed here!) again. You know, I guess I just find it hard to empathize with characters who make the choice to get into drugs; the end result is not terribly surprising.

But worse than the vacuous nature of the characters and their pointless degeneration into drug addicts (this is truly turning me off to films about anyone in the 60s and 70s as I grew up pretty well indoctrinated by "Just Say No" and the whole "everybody was doing it" mentality just reeks of stupidity to me) is the way too many of the actors overwhelm the roles they are in. So, for example, in Factory Girl, a number of the characters are either unnamed or their names are not said with any frequency as to associate them with their character. The perfect example is Edie's henchman Jimmy Fallon. No, her henchman is Chuck Wein, but from the moment he appears on the screen, I groaned and said "That's Jimmy Fallon." And throughout the film, it was Jimmy Fallon as . . . no, it was pretty much just Fallon walking around the film.

And it's not just Fallon who sticks out as himself. Mena Suvari's entrance into the film (sure, she's a brunette here, but the eyes are a dead giveaway!) is marked similarly by "Hey! That's Mena Suvari!" And she does so little in the film that every time she appears, the MS alarm goes off. Edward Herrmann and Illeana Douglas are stuck in similar niches. Even Guy Pearce as Andy Warhol has an element of Guy Pearce as Andy Warhol. From the moment I recognized the actor as Pearce, he stood out some and never fell back within the character.

Why, then, do I list the acting as one of the few decent things about this movie? First, Hayden Christensen. Yup, Hayden Christensen. Writers Aaron Richard Golub, Captain Mauzner, and Simon Monjack and director George Hickenlooper may have chickened out or not gotten the clearance to call Christensen's character anything other than "Musician" but from the moment Christensen appears on screen, he is Bob Dylan. And you know what, it's not "Hayden Christensen as Bob Dylan," it's Bob Dylan. He's that good. No one is more surprised than I!

Sienna Miller does a fine job of playing Edie Sedgwick. This is the first film I've seen Miller in and she did a fine job, easily convincing me of the character of Edie (whether I liked the character or not). Miller has a wonderful sense of movement that immediately lures the viewer in to watching her, at the very least.

But the movie is not terribly sexy, unlike what it claims. Maybe it's just me, but considering most of the nudity in the film involves bruised buttocks getting needles shoved in them (that's not a euphemism, most of the film's nudity comes in the form of the drug use context), it's hard to call the movie sexy. There is a decent love scene between Edie and "the Musician," but it comes so late in the film that anyone but the most stouthearted of film viewers will have given up on the movie well before then.

As for the "Unrated" aspect, I'm surprised that this film didn't get an "R." Sure, there's a lot of drug use and bare breasts, but it's nothing an 18 year-old can't handle.

As for the DVD extras (I suffered through them, so please read this!), most of them are self-absorbed tributes to the real Edie Sedgwick and they are dull. George Hickenlooper talks about what a fascinating woman Edie was, but after sitting through his 99 minute movie, he failed to convince me. Repeating it over and over again in the behind-the-scenes featurette, the commentary and the section on the real Edie didn't sell me. Other bonuses include Guy Pearce's video diary, Sienna Miller's casting tapes (hoorah for Hickenlooper who saw Miller's potential off these!), and the film's trailer (much better than the actual movie). There's one deleted scene which adds no value to the film or the DVD.

All in all, there's nothing here that's entertaining, informative or even enjoyable for fans of drama, biographies or (from what I've read) fans of Edie Sedgwick. And if you weren't one before, this film won't make you one. I'm going to go watch Frida (reviewed here!) now to clean my palate.

For other works with Beth Grant, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Artist
Extract
No Country For Old Men
Southland Tales
Little Miss Sunshine
Matchstick Men
Donnie Darko
Rain Man

3.5/10

For other films, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best film to worst!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Lesson From The Time Machine Is: If You Fail Once, Don't Try Again!

The Good: Moments of special effects, Jeremy Irons, Moments of concept
The Bad: Most of the acting, Character, Execution of plot
The Basics: In a generally disappointing film, Alexander Hartdegen tries once to save his lover, gives up and jumps to the future to help humans fight being eaten by their cousin race.


After I watched L.A. Confidential for the first time (reviewed here!), I remember being instantly enthusiastic about Guy Pearce. He had impressed me in that movie and I wanted to find something else he was in, so I sought and I found The Time Machine right away. As part of my self-proclaimed insanity, when I recently watched Memento (reviewed here!) and went to reference my review for The Time Machine, I was baffled to discover I had not written one. So, I was compelled to take in this science fiction film a second time (last night).

Alexander Hartdegen is a radical physics instructor who has fallen in love with Emma, a simple woman in the late 1800s. Alexander proposes to Emma and no sooner are they engaged than she is killed in a mugging. Bummer. Alexander spends four years working on a time machine, which he utilizes to return to the night of the proposal, where he takes Emma into the city (as opposed to into the park) to prevent her from dying. When this plan keeps her from being mugged, she ends up run down by a carriage and killed and Alexander ends up so distraught that he hops into his time machine and travels to the future to try to figure out how he change the past. When he is leaving the future, he accidentally skips forward a short distance again to a time when excavating the moon has essentially blown it up and our satellite is radically altering Earth's orbit and jeopardizing humanity.

Escaping this near future knocks Alexander unconscious with the violence of the quakes he is experiencing and Alexander is thrown into the distant future, approximately 800,000 years into the future. There, he discovers recognizable humans living in huts and caves above the rivers where they are preyed upon by Morlocks for food and breeding stock.

Maybe I just didn't write a review the first time around because I was so terribly disappointed with The Time Machine; after all, I watched it for Guy Pearce and his slack-jawed performance of Alexander Hartdegen was one of the serious drawbacks of the movie. Seriously. Pearce spends all of his time in his native time (and up until the final leap into the distant future) with his mouth open in one of the dumbest expressions of all time.

This does not aid the story or the character because in addition to looking like an utter moron throughout a significant portion of the movie, Alexander remains one of the least sensible characters of all time. As someone with something of an obsessive personality, I've no fear in saying that if one is determined enough to shatter the laws of physics for love, when things don't work out the first time, I'd try again. Alexander fails to save Emma after his first attempt, so he gives up. How ridiculous is that?!

Granted, it's not the most natural thing to solve one's problems by going back in time to try to undo the problems, but if one is determined enough to do that, common sense seems to indicate that such a person would be of such a character as to not give up after the first time. So, taking Emma out of the park fails. What stops Alexander from going back again and simply incapacitating the mugger? Or delaying the carriage that runs Emma over in his first time travel experiment? Logic dictates that with each attempt, odds of success increase as the number of Alexander's working to save her life increase as well.

This is just an irreconcilable character problem that is utterly unforgivable. What's even worse is Alexander's eventual surrender to fate in the distant future. The humans and the Morlocks, the subterranean evolutionary offspring of humanity, have been locked in effectual warfare for thousands of years and Alexander's refusal to go back and stop the apocalypse that creates the Morlocks and makes humans into their meat product is just ridiculous. Man loves woman enough to go back in time (once) to try to save her, man does not love Humanity enough to even make a single attempt.

Part of the problem here is certainly the acting, which is compounding the lousy characters. The best performances are bit performances in The Time Machine. Mark Addy plays Alexander's best friend, David Filby in Alexander's native time. Addy gets into the period part and is believable as the stiff but likable associate of Alexander with his sympathetic delivery of lines intended to heal his wounded friend. Similarly, Jeremy Irons is great as the villainous Uber-Morlock, though he comes into the movie so late that by the time he makes his appearance, the viewer just does not care. Irons has a much more substantial and better role in The Mission, reviewed here.

Guy Pearce, though, is not at the top of his game here. His performance does not make or break the movie, but he fairly bumbles through the story, teetering as he does with a weak character on a pretty poor script. He's not given a lot of decent lines in the distant future and as much of the movie is spent there, it just weakens the whole piece.

Samantha Mumba is, sadly, unremarkable as Mara, Alexander's friend and ally in the distant future. And Orlando Jones, in his cameos as Vox is simply Orlando Jones. I like Orlando Jones on MadTV. He's funny and it was an excellent starting point for him. When Jones, as Vox, begins to sing in the library, it seems like Jones, not the character he is playing and (writer) John Logan's addition of "Live long and prosper" as a line for Vox just fell flat.

The special effects are adequate and succeed in being generally special, at least during the actual time traveling sequences. Problematically, some of the basic shots (Alexander in front of the library in the future springs instantly to mind) are so obviously bluescreen shots that they are distracting. The score during the big leap forward is pretty wonderful.

On the overall, though, H.G. Wells's concept is corrupted by writers David Duncan and John Logan and executed in an unremarkable way by director Simon Wells. Even a science fiction fan is unlikely to enjoy this outing, even on a rainy day after their entire collection is exhausted. I had to sit through it twice to write that; no need for you to make the same mistake!

For other works with Sienna Guillory, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Inkheart
Love Actually

4/10

For other films, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Inspired Brilliance Starts The Career Of Christopher Nolan: Memento

The Good: Incredible acting, Excellent concept, Interesting characters, A lot of good bonuses on DVD
The Bad: It's going to take real study to figure out the whole truth
The Basics: A man with no short-term memory works a hunt for the man who killed his wife backwards in a stylish, clever movie by Christopher Nolan.


Guy Pearce is an actor whose day came and went rather quickly, it seems. He was robbed of his rightful top billing in L.A. Confidential (reviewed here!) because he lacked celebrity and he was given the lead in such uninspired films as The Time Machine. And in between, he created the magnum opus of his career thus far with Memento, a film where he looks more like Brad Pitt (a la Fight Club) than Guy Pearce. The truth is Memento has been on my list for years and having finally seen is, I'm glad I saw it. Memento makes me wish that underrated movies would be re-released in theaters every couple of years until they "take." Memento is a high-concept movie that I'm unsure the movie-going public appreciated enough in 2000, when it was released.

Leonard suffers from a rather serious brain disorder where cannot form any new memories, so his short-term memory never gets archived into his long-term memory. Thus, roughly every five minutes, Leonard's life restarts. This is problematic as he is searching for the man who killed his wife an indeterminate amount of time ago. Starting with the moment Leonard believes he has found his wife's killer, Memento works backward to through a sequence of events that put him at the moment of vindication.

Leonard functions by taking Polaroid photographs of people he encounters and making notes about them. This allows him to do such things as figure out which car is his, define allegiances and know where he is bunking. Leonard tattoos the most important notes onto his body so they become permanent. The thing is, other people may - or may not - be using Leonard's system of keeping track of his life against him.

Memento is most respectfully reviewed with a minimalist review. My review is successful only if it gets you to watch this film and the truth is, it's exceptionally hard to do that at length without delving into the complexities that make Memento worth seeing. It's unfortunate, because ideally, the viewer should go into a first viewing of Memento with minimal information. The movie gives the viewer all they need in order to figure out what is going on, what the truth is, and how the movie works. So, for example, one of the characters explicitly postulates that Leonard's disorder would be like living his life backwards, not knowing if he was coming or going, which basically informs any viewer who hasn't picked up the technique of the movie (i.e. that it is going backwards) by that point what is going on.

This is an ambitious project for director Christopher Nolan. This was his first major studio, successful, feature-length project and it's amazing that his career started on such a high note (though I suppose I ought not to be surprised as I enjoyed his more recent The Prestige, reviewed here!). Nolan takes a complicated screenplay (which he wrote based on the short story "Memento Mori") and executes it with flair, style and distinction. Nolan does more than use a plot technique to make the movie distinctive or weird, but he creates a visual style that immediately transforms the viewer's reality. The opening credit sequence drags the viewer backward and it's a very intriguing and intoxicating method for getting the viewer into the film's mindset.

The characters in Memento are instantly engrossing, starting with Leonard. Leonard's condition could be all that is used to define his character, but wisely Nolan does not allow his disorder to be the end all and be all of his personality. Leonard has love, loss and no small amount of obsession, making his character interesting and watchable. His disorder makes his lack of immediate passion for vengeance realistic; scenes exploring the continual sense of loss Leonard experiences over the death of his wife, give him heart that make him memorable and essentially human.

Leonard is surrounded by intriguing characters, who include Burt, Teddy and Natalie. Burt is simply the hotel lobby clerk who pops up through the movie to amuse the viewer and jerk Leonard around. Far more important are Burt and Natalie. Natalie is a woman who appears to be aiding Leonard in his quest to find the man who killed his wife. She is sympathetic, sad and she captivates the attention of both Leonard and the viewer.

Teddy is the character who seems most ambiguous and troubling to both Leonard and the viewer. He's slick and it's easy to view him as a con man and the truth is part of that comes from the way the movie is structured and some from the way Joe Pantoliano plays Teddy. Pantoliano treats the viewer to his wide-mouthed smile and jocular speeches from the beginning, making us feel like he's trying to pull one over on both Leonard and the viewer. Pantoliano is great at that sort of role and in Memento, he creates the masterpiece performance of sleazy sidekick.

Carrie-Anne Moss plays Natalie and her performance is the one that shakes the viewer. Moss transforms Natalie throughout the movie in such a way that jerks at the viewer, not simply for the character manipulations but by the genius portrayal Moss gives. To explain more and go into depth about how specifically Moss is genius in her performance would give too much away about the twists in the movie, so please take it on my word that her acting in the movie is amazing and worth the price of admission alone.

Guy Pearce is exceptional as Leonard. Throughout the film, Leonard tells the story of Sammy Jankis, someone who suffered from a similar condition as he does. Leonard suggests that Sammy was faking his condition and the "tells" he indicates clued him into the possible acting on Sammy's part are never present in Leonard's character. Pearce fully embraces the character and completely sells the audience on who he is and why he is the way he is.

In the end, Memento is an exceptional movie that I'm going to have to go back and rewatch several times. To put it all together, to make a coherent argument about who is truly telling the truth is a real task. There are some concepts that become undeniable and wrenching (again, I'm not going to ruin the surprises for you), but there are giant leaps in Memento that seem up for debate. The DVD has an exceptional number of bonus features to help the interested viewer get into the story even more and it's almost worth making a guarantee that if you pick the disc up and watch Memento, you'll want to watch and listen to those bonus features.

This is not a movie the viewer can give half (or less) attention to. It is a movie that demands attention, but it rewards the viewer with its attention to detail and the integrity and interest of the story created. It is an incredible debut and well worth the buy.

For other works with Stephen Tobolowsky, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax
Peep World
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Heroes - Season 2
Adaptation.

9.5/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to visit my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Divorced From The Marketing, Prometheus Is Still More Than “Alien: The Next Generation!”

The Good: Interesting characters, Engaging philosophical elements, Great effects, Decent pacing, Good initial story, Good acting.
The Bad: Plot develops into something far too familiar (derivative).
The Basics: With Prometheus, a science vessel inadvertently awakens a powerful, potentially malevolent force that might redefine humanity’s understanding of itself!


Entering 2012, there was no film I was more excited about than The Dark Knight Rises (reviewed here!). From pretty much the moment Anne Hathaway was cast as Selina Kyle, I was psyched. But on New Year’s Day, I visited the IMDB and saw the movie poster for Prometheus posted there. And I began to look into what the film was about. And suddenly, there was a new movie I was anticipating. With the earliest press about Prometheus debating whether or not the movie, which Ridley Scott had announced as the story of the “space jockey” from Alien, would actually be a prequel to Alien, I was hooked on every scrap of information that was released about Prometheus.

So, I began to consider what a prequel would actually mean. If the film was actually going to be about the giant alien seen in the crashed derelict spacecraft in Alien, it would – I reasoned – have to be set quite some time ago. After all, the “space jockey” was a fossil. So, it seemed logical that any real prequel to Alien that focused on the space jockey would have to be about how that crescent-shaped ship crashed on the planet with the methane crystals in the atmosphere. To satisfy fans – and I am a fan of the Alien Quadrilogy (reviewed here!) – it would have to establish the space jockey setting the twelve-second repeating beacon that the Nostromo was sent to investigate and answer how the space jockey became infected with the alien that burst out of its chest, leaving the fossilized remains.

By those criteria, Prometheus is not a prequel to Alien. Set in the same universe as Alien, Prometheus is an entirely tangential story that populates the Alien universe more than it has been (in Aliens, one of the Marines refers to Ripley’s seeing an alien in such a derisive tone that makes it sound like humans have not had much experience with extraterrestrials, despite other Marines referring to sex with the, presumably, androgynous Arcturians). A science fiction-horror film that tries to be smart and cerebral, Prometheus develops into a fight for survival on a distant world that is likely to please the fans of the Alien franchise.

Except for those looking for something truly new.

The only real, lasting, disappointment from Prometheus is that the build-up implied that the film would be something truly new and different. For all of the incredible aspects of Prometheus, the plot structure too-closely mirrors other installments in the Alien franchise, so that the film that originally seemed audacious enough to truly do its own thing, eventually becomes a whittling down process that seems more like it is trying to squeeze back into the mold, as opposed to truly break it.

That said, Prometheus is incredible and must be seen on the big screen (biggest possible!) in order to truly appreciate the depth, scope and grandeur of all its aspects, even its scariest ones.

Following the discovery on Earth of potential extraterrestrial influence with disparate ancient civilizations, the Weyland Corporation sends an expedition to a remote sector of space in the hopes of discovering who those aliens were and how they influenced humanity. The android, David, awakens the crew of the science ship Prometheus, who include scientists, the ship’s captain and a representative from the Weyland Corporation, Meredith Vickers. Landing on a moon around a gas giant, the Prometheus crew finds an alien structure and inside they discover alien bodies. They also find storage containers. With a sandstorm coming that will cut off the team from the landed ship, the chief scientists – Shaw and Holloway – and David return to the Prometheus.

Aboard the Prometheus, the scientists study an alien head they recovered, while David opens one of the alien containers and infects Holloway with material from it. With the storm passed, another team returns to the temple to find those left behind dead. David accesses another level of the temple, which is actually an alien space ship. While Holloway’s health worsens, David learns that the aliens had, in fact, been to Earth and they may still have plans for it. Desperate to stop the spread of the parasites that are growing within Holloway and Shaw, as well as prevent the ancient aliens from returning to Earth to wipe out humanity, Vickers, Captain Janeck, David, and Shaw work against the alien entities and the sinister Weyland Corporation.

Prometheus is notable in that it does what both great science fiction and great films do; it successfully tries to explore something greater than itself. In many ways, Prometheus is an incredibly well-detailed extension of the old adage that one should not look into the face of their own gods. Elizabeth Shaw is, from a young age, motivated by a strong desire to learn and seek her creator. While she is a scientist, she adopts the idea that humanity was seeded on Earth and the artwork from ancient cultures implies to her that the engineers of humanity’s development returned or lived among ancient humans. Hers is a quest to, essentially, seek out her god.

In many ways, that is the quest of David, as well. Programmed by the Weyland Corporation, David has a full understanding that his programming is limited to a human mindset. David wants to experience something more and his place in Prometheus solidifies the metaphor of the dangers of seeking god, especially when one has something they want of it. Both Shaw and David yearn for discovery (though David has been programmed alternative directives) and Prometheus starts as their search.

But the theme of exploring humanity’s origins and trying to understand who we are and why we exist comes to a pretty abrupt end once Holloway is infected. Instead of simply following that course and trying to provide the audience with answers which were bound to disappoint theists everywhere, Prometheus takes a right turn into horror. The cerebral aspects of Prometheus are not completely negated or done away with – there is an entire conspiracy plotline that becomes far more active in the film’s latter half that is smartly presented – but once Holloway and Shaw become human incubators, Prometheus makes the transition from mildly scary science fiction to an action adventure film that is more in line with the standard horror film than Star Trek or Star Wars.

Prometheus manages to present engaging characters – which might be why it is so disturbing that the film turns into the bloodbath it does. While there are a few members of the Prometheus crew who never leap into being more than background characters, the main crew is remarkably well-defined. Even Vickers, who initially is cast as a cold, efficient, Company-oriented woman who might seem to have no real personality to her outside a sense of ruthless efficiency, is given a compelling reason for all of her actions in the film’s latter half. The relationship between Shaw and Holloway (who is an atheist) works well as an “opposites attract” type relationship while they share a common interest in the archaeological evidence they collated prior to the flight and a sense of adventure that makes their journey together seem plausible.

But, like Alien, Prometheus takes a step back from its characters to become a film that is a series of confrontations and desperate escapes. This, of course, leaves the viewer feeling somewhat jerked around as the characters one gets invested in in Prometheus do not have great chances of survival and the body count in the film is predictably high.

What sets Prometheus apart from other science fiction horrors, in addition to the philosophy and stronger sense of characters at the film’s outset, is the caliber of acting. Prometheus might seem to be playing with a stacked deck with Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, and Michael Fassbender (with brief initial roles from Patrick Wilson and Guy Pearce as well), but the performers truly do give something new of themselves, each and every one. In Prometheus, Elba has a more casual and accessible role as Janeck than in any other role I have yet seen him. He is professional, but approachable and Elba plays Janeck as a guy who cares, which offsets Theron’s Vickers very nicely, as they share many scenes together.

As for Charlize Theron, Prometheus gives her a nice chance to play villainous with more purpose than she was able to illustrate in Snow White And The Huntsman (reviewed here!). Theron plays steely well and she makes Meredith Vickers often feel less human than Michael Fassbender’s David, but she makes the role work. As Vickers is given more backstory, Theron infuses more emotion to her, without ever making the character go through any form of ridiculous transition. Theron establishes Vickers with a strong sense of personality and she never slips from that.

As the resident android, David, in Prometheus, Michael Fassbender obviously has a significant acting challenge. Fassbender continues to impress with his range as David. In Prometheus, he manages to play a character that is clearly not human, while making him seem more than just a guy with somewhat stiff mannerisms. For lack of a better analogy, Fassbender does not make David into a character like Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Data, as an android searching for what it means to be human. Instead, Fassbender manages to simply embody an android by acting soulless. His performance is without spark or zest and that wonderfully frees him to make David seem like an android, without making him unsympathetic. Fassbender dominates his scenes and he still has the ability to evoke complex emotions with simply a look.

The obvious protagonist in Prometheus is Elizabeth Shaw, played by Noomi Rapace. Prometheus is actually the first film I have seen Rapace in and it was enough to make me willing to look her up in other works. She plays Shaw’s idealism exceptionally well – with literal wide-eyed excitement and she is credible in the film’s later sequences which require her to seem both tormented and as something of an action heroine.

The effects in Prometheus are absolutely amazing, making it a visual wonder that ought to be viewed on the biggest possible screen. Having now seen it again, this time in IMAX 3-D, I have to say that is THE way to see Prometheus! Ridley Scott uses the whole canvass for the IMAX presentation and even on that, there are several moments, like when the Prometheus is entering orbit and the atmosphere, that the ship is tiny, even in IMAX. It will be virtually impossible to see on DVD!

The 3-D effects for the IMAX presentation are simply stunning. Because the film was filmed in 3-D, the effects are like watching a box filled with characters and settings, as opposed to post-produced 3-D, which basically looks like two levels. Prometheus is rich in depth, even in the smaller moments, in 3-D IMAX.

As well, the audio presentation is exceptional. Events like the silt pounding the ship and crew make one's chair vibrate from the intensity and the climax of the film is so much richer with the IMAX soundsystem. I was also much more aware of the soundtrack the second time through and the haunting theme to Prometheus lends the film a wonderful sense of adventure and, later, horror.

But Prometheus is not flawless; it’s own familiarity robs it of that. But for fans of the Alien franchise who have been looking for something exciting that is new but on the familiar canvass, after so many false starts and disappointing sequels, Prometheus feels like coming home.

For other works with Micheal Fassbender, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Haywire
X-Men: First Class
Jonah Hex
300

9.5/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all of the films I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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