Prometheus = Alien + Blade Runner.
The film asks three questions:
- Where do we come from?
- Where does the alien of Alien come from?
- Can the director, Ridley Scott, live up to Alien and Blade Runner, his sci-fi opi?
The answers:
- We do not know. Maybe we shouldn’t. The film keeps wondering.
- See the movie. I won’t spoil this for you.
- Nearly. The audience gets its intellectual and visceral ya-yas.
Prometheus does the Alien franchise proud. A first-rate cast plays a motley crew of curious minds (some of whom are indelible, some of whom act stupidly, and most of whom come to an icky end) who explore the secrets of the universe. Just as he did in Alien, Scott honors his forbears (Bava, Hooper, Kubrick, and Tarkovsky, to name a few). It’s intense — an expertly paced, A-sized heap of Lovecraft, with the best FX money can buy. For bloody shock, there’s even a self-imposed Cesarean to rival the chest-burst of the first film. Still, Prometheus is a bit more thoughtful.
Scott adds the metaphysical musings of Blade Runner to the Giger, bio-tech horror of Alien. In effect, he “Frankenstein”s the two movies to create his own Frankenstein. Don’t f*ck with the universe, the movie says. Don’t f*ck with life. Most of the film’s detractors miss the point: Like as not, a sense of wonder can lead to a sense of dread. Humans are good. They are evil, too. Why should extraterrestrials be any different? Past eons, unchanged by space, is the survival instinct.
Life fights to live.
Rating: B+
