Very good, but no masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (12 June 2012)

It's been three days since I saw Prometheus, and I can't stop thinking about it. And it's not because it was so good, or so terrible. Rather, I can't remember feeling so conflicted about a film that I wanted so badly to love, but ultimately merely liked.
First things first: Ridley Scott, Damon Lindelof, etc. have repeatedly said that this is not a direct prequel to Alien. I disagree. While it may not be a prequel that immediately precedes Alien, it is a prequel nonetheless, at least as far as the story is concerned. What really sets the film apart from Alien is that Prometheus is a science fiction film according to the strictest definition of the genre. Despite what anyone else may tell you, Alien is not a sci-fi movie. It's a horror film through and through that just happens to take place in the future, on a spaceship with aliens. And while Prometheus never presents moments of sheer terror that are found in the films that (chronologically) follow it, the amount of tension in this film is off the charts. A sense of foreboding slowly begins to grow as soon as the team lands on the planet, and intensifies further as certain characters' motivations are revealed.
Maybe that's why the final third of the movie falls a bit flat. Everything from the first hour and a half or so is a giant, masterful buildup to what should have been a mind-blowing conclusion that never really arrives. In many ways, Prometheus feels like a mash-up of Alien and Sunshine, at least in terms of structure and, more loosely, theme, which begs the question: isn't there a better (or at least different) template these kinds of films can fall into? The structure works when acts one and two build to a well-executed act three, but when that final act begets a rushed resolution that only ties up a handful of loose ends, you can't help but feel a little cheated. I'm not a big horror fan, and I do appreciate good sci-fi. In theory, this means I should greatly prefer Prometheus to Alien. I like Shaw better than Ripley. I find David more compelling than Ash. The story in Prometheus is, arguably, more complex and nuanced than Alien's. The problem lies in the execution. While the skeleton of Prometheus's story is fascinating, the details that flesh it out are clichéd, heavy-handed, and, by turns, contradictory. Sometimes, the details may even be missing entirely. A shared characteristic of many truly great sci-fi films is leaving unanswered questions, but when most of the questions are only half presented to begin with, problems greater than finding an acceptable interpretation arise. And then there's the separate issue of dealing with the final minutes of Prometheus. It's as if no one really knew how to end the film and so they decided to re-shoot the last five minutes of Alien. A strong female protagonist fights an alien in the claustrophobic confines of an escape shuttlewhere have I seen that before? Some call it homage; I call it laziness.
Despite its flaws, there's much to like about Prometheus. Its use of 3D is the best I've seen in any movie. There was not one instance where I felt the effect was overdone, and not one shot that felt like it was in the movie just so it could be in 3D (I can't think of another 3D movie where this is the case). 3D aside, the visuals themselves are spectacular. Even if this never becomes an iconic film, it certainly has many iconic moments (David in the map room and Shaw's medipod scene immediately come to mind). The film is also excellently supported by its cast. Everyone raves about Michael Fassbender's performance, and while that praise is certainly deserved, I feel like the performances by the rest of the cast are being a bit overshadowed, which is a shame as they're all very good.
Taken as a whole, I enjoyed this film. I really did. It's just too bad that certain script issues prevented it from being a masterpiece.