serious flaws marred a grand concept

Rating: 6/10 (24 January 2013)

The film is not as bad as some reviewers claim, although it has flaws which have been exhaustively cataloged by other reviewers. The flaws mostly concern the manner in which scientific research is portrayed: bungling and amateurish. However, there is a deeper message and it is very much to do with the consequences of bungling and incautious science. Not all of the flaws can be excused in this manner, and I mention just one: when the protagonist, Shaw, discovers she is incubating a monster, she runs to an automated surgical cabinet to have the fetus removed by cesarean section; the cabinet answers (yes, it talks) that it is not programmed for female physiology. This is a director's trick to introduce time-pressure tension. However, the device is the private possession of the woman ostensibly in charge of the spaceship, Meredith, who could certainly have outfitted a private spaceship with a surgical unit programmed for females. Perhaps a trivial detail, but, as other reviewers have mentioned, there is a long litany of similar errors of detail which, taken together, seriously detract from the film. The complete lack of elementary safety precautions is especially glaring: don't take off your helmet on a strange planet; don't pick up an unknown snake with your hands, use forceps; don't open the door of a spaceship without first verifying who knocked; the list goes on and on. These are indicative of a weak screenplay
On the positive side, the film tackles some big issues and delivers some powerful punches. The purpose of the journey into space is, ostensibly, to "meet our makers", the presumption being that our makers could answer some big questions, such as why we are here. In a flashback, the protagonist, as a girl, confronts her father with "why did mommy have to die" and "where do people go after they die", and her father gives her a fanciful answer that dead people go to a better place. When challenged by his daughter to justify his belief, he cannot but can only say that he chooses so to believe. This is picked up again later in the movie when adult-Shaw realizes the journey has not brought the traditional (fanciful) answers she had hoped for. The film challenges our presumption that if we were to meet our makers, we would get answers. Message number one: be careful what truth you seek, because you might not be able to bear it if you get it.
As the film progresses, it becomes apparent that several characters have alternative agendas to Shaw's scientific curiosity. Meredith (Theron) is out to inherit the Corporate Empire. David (Michael Fassbender, excellent performance), is the crowning achievement of the Corporation -- an android -- whose purpose in life is to serve his maker. David's dying creator (spoiler: also Meredith's father) -- played by Guy Pearce--, bankrolled the journey in hopes of evading death. Plot tension is generated by the interaction of these characters with their conflicting and sometimes secretive purposes; you could call it underplayed, or weak direction, as they are subordinate to the almost overwhelming visual attention commanded by the alien encounters.
The David-Meredith dynamic works well: David is the son the tycoon wished he had had, and is physically a male version of the tycoon's beautiful daughter, Meredith; but David is without emotion, and therefore without love or reverence for his maker. Whereas, the daughter emulates David's emotional coldness so far that the ship's captain (perhaps jokingly) suspects that she too is an android. She has tried to find grace with her father through a kind of gender role reversal, and failed--only loneliness and bitterness remain between them. Guy Pearce is under- utilized, but Theron gives a good performance. A more human aspect of her character (with her hair down) appears on the Blu-Ray disc; too bad it was cut from the cinema version.
There is some excellent dialog between David and the humans in which the humans lament not knowing what their makers' intentions were, whereas David is certain of his maker's intention yet finds no comfort in it. This irony is echoed in the scene in which the tycoon realizes his maker despises him, just as the tycoon ultimately despises his robot-ersatz-son. The tycoon's last-gasp "it's nothing", David flatly comments with "I know". He knew all along there is no "big answer" to the "big question", but no human would have believed him because he's a robot--humans have to learn the hard way.
Our makers, it turns out, were not gods, but genetic engineers-- flawed mortals like ourselves--who played with fire and got burned. In another deleted scene, the second major message of the film is set up: the dangers of unfettered science. The ship's captain tells how a research facility had to be blown up with all personnel because "somebody spilled something" and it got loose. Well--spoiler!--, our makers spilled something and it got loose. As in Greek tragedy, where man triggers his own doom by trying to avoid it, so here, the black goo has been contaminated/activated/mutated by the scientists' own breath (don't remove your helmet on a strange planet!). David, in obedience to his maker's instructions, continues the experiment, incubating the alien genetic material in human guinea pigs, to see whether human immortality can be 'engineered'--with horrific results. Prequel alert: a monster familiar from other films appears: metamorphosed during the course of this film, beginning as genetically engineered molasses, having been incubated through human contact, then hatched out of the body of one of the pale muscle-bound aliens who were ultimately our creators--and now it's loose.
The film grasps some thorny thistles, gives them a good shake, and provides, if not pleasing answers, then considerable food for thought -- in this respect the film succeeds. Visually, absolutely stunning. However, as many reviewers remarked, it is marred by inaccuracies of detail inexcusable from such an experienced director.
6/10