Alien Sequel-Prequel Is a Muddled Disappointment
Prometheus / directed by Ridley Scott
A secret exhaustion underlies the crisp surfaces and epic aspirations of Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s Alien-prequel-spinoff-3-D-competition with James Cameron’s Avatar. For perhaps the first ten minutes, it seems possible we are encountering a story that weaves together alien civilizations and the origins of man in a way that’s both cosmic and grounded. We move from a prologue involving panoramic shots of an alien world (vast and mythic and mysterious), to a pair of anthropologists’ discovery of ancient and portentous cave art in Scotland circa 2090, to the ministrations of a very odd man aboard a traveling spacecraft. But as we blink out of hyperspace and multidimensional credits and into contact with the main narrative, the intrigue and possibilities of the setup begin to run, slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, into the meatgrinder of a disappointing execution.
We initially appear to be watiching a mission to locate the race of beings who our previously-glimpsed anthropologists (Elizabeth Shaw, played by the Swedish Noomi Rapace, and Charlie Holloway, played by Logan Marshall-Green) believe are the subjects of that ancient and portentous cave art whose discovery we shared with them only a few minutes ago (though more than four years have passed in movie time since that fateful discovery), and who in fact might well be the progenitors (or as they put it, the “Engineers”) of the human race. What we also have is an immediate tangle of sinister motives and interests around this mission. First, it turns out that most onboard the ship aren’t aware of the purpose of this visit to their target planet. Soon thereafter, the steely leader of the overall expedition, Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), unexpectedly informs everyone both that she, not they, are in charge of this here expedition. They, and we, are made to understand that the corporation footing the bill for their mission might be interested in goals more selfish than the usual benign interest in meeting your maker. And so good-ol’ human exploitation and dark designs are threaded with possible discoveries that could change mankind’s conception of itself in the profoundest ways: a promising, if convoluted, start.
But a dramatic spacecraft landing and a short high-tech dune buggy ride later, we have regressed into a state from which we will not escape for the rest of the film: caught in the primordial terror plot ooze of being stuck in a cave with possible ghoulies crawling around just beyond the light. Even before these nemeses begin to ooze and swim and slowly arise (they do all three, and more!), we have already been cued to realize that this voyage to find man’s origins will be ironic at best, due to the fact that it’s taking place in goopy caverns out of which any moviegoer worth his or her saltwater taffy knows no good can come.
We also know that our team is basically fucked because, from the get-go, the expedition flouts in brazen and irresponsible ways any basic protocols of what to do on an alien world. We have already been introduced to the concept that this is a somewhat rag-tag public-private partnership, complete with idiosyncratic biologists and geologists, geeky and head-tatted, respectively, but it is telling that the first violation of protocol is by exobiologist Charlie, who removes the helmet of his survival suit without further ado once he’s informed the air in the goopy cavern has enough oxygen to breathe. (This is the not the only time that the basic reasoning skills of this fellow purportedly so excited to discover the origins of man that he’s traveled two years in suspended animation are called into serious and nonsensical question; later, after an actual Engineer (or at least its decapitated head) has been brought back to the Prometheus for examination, Charlie merely sits glumly, literally driven to drink by the fact that our possible progenitors are dead; apparently, he cannot muster, let alone fake, any excitement at the fact that WHILE HIS THEORY ABOUT THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGINS OF MAN MAY NOT YET BE PROVED, HE HAS JUST DISCOVERED WHAT APPEARS TO BE THE FIRST EVIDENCE OF INTELLIGENT NON-HUMAN LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE!).
While the helmet removal itself does not directly lead to disaster, it does represent the leading edge of a general letting down of the guard that contributes to what must be counted as a general catastrophe for just about everyone involved in this mission, from an alien autopsy performed without adequate (though clearly available!) containment facilities, to inadequate execution of basic decontamination procedures, to insufficient caution around eyeless albino snake-like creatures wriggling out of the primordial black ooze.
What I am basically saying is that we have a very sophisticated-looking and high-concept movie that hinges not just on its 21st century crew being unfamiliar with the basics of 20th century sci-fi and horror films, but its audience being unfamiliar with them as well. The substance of the movie comes down to extracting horror from threats that either look suspiciously like the black goop from the X-Files, or the monsters we already know through the Alien movies. None of it feels original; all of it feels heavy-handed.
