A potential epic movie turned into a B-grade horror

Rating: 4/10 (11 July 2012)

When I was a child, I used to marvel at the awesome Science Fiction art done by Chris Foss, Vincent Di Fate. They were magnificent artwork, awe inspiring stuff.
Watching the first half of the movie I felt drawn back to that time - I was pure joy at the sheer brilliance of the set design, props and mesmerized by that delicately elegant, and strangely ominous piano soundtrack - Chopin's Raindrops. I liked the homage to other films - David's voice and sinister child-like curiosity echoes Hal (Space Odyssey 2001) and the 1972 sci-fi film, Silent Running.
Unfortunately, the story was ghastly written.
So let's recap - Big ivory colored alien spacemen nicknamed "Engineers" came to ancient Earth and created life - hence the drawings in different civilizations and times. However 2000 years ago - during the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ - something bad happened and the Engineers on the distant planet all get killed mysteriously, possibly by the black goo infected by humanity's evil. We are meant to deduce that its somehow people's fault.
So back to the present - two Scientists - Hollo "woohoo" way and Elizabeth "I believe what I want to believe" Shaw discover ancient drawings which point to a distant solar system that contain a planet like Earth which they believe contain our Alien makers. They convince Weyland, a Rupert Murdoch archetype that this could be the place where the Alien Space Gods live. And he spends one trillion dollars to sent them into space to track down the planet.
Inflation must have spaced out in the future because even with one trillion dollars Weyland could not hire a more professional group of astronauts. So we're saddled with motley crew made out of the "Wrong Stuff" - the smart-ass Captain, the "I goofed up" navigator from the Spaceship Icarus (IMDB:Sunshine), a geologist from the School of Scottish Soccer Hooligans and the usual idiots, standard space monster food.
This haphazard approach extends to everything they do - they land their giant spaceship straight on the planet without first sending a probe to check for danger. No thought is given to whether the atmosphere is hostile to the spaceship.
When by some luck they come across an Alien Space Temple they immediately rush to check out. No thought is given to the possibility that life or other cities may exist on other parts of the planet.
Its as if they had driven 6 hours to the shopping mall.
The amateurish attitude carries on - the scientists remove their helmets in the Alien Temple allowing themselves to be infected by whatever bacteria human science hasn't encountered yet. Then they make the Greatest Discovery, a decapitated 2000 year old alien head which by some miracle is still alive. They zip-lock it back to the ship and predictably it explodes.
Considering that they are suppose to be top scientists, it is infuriating to see them behave with the aplomb of first year high school students.
The only one who seems to have a clue is the humanoid robot - David, who strangely knows precisely how to operate the Alien doors and equipment. But he behaves like a child, curiously constantly wanting to touch things and conducting his own secret experiments with alien goo and helping a alien fetus to germinate.
Predictable the humans constantly remind "Pinocchio" that he is not a human and has no soul or emotion. Wow, I hope the human-like robot doesn't develop a human-like complex and try and kill them.
There are many religious metaphors and parallels running through the show - adding them would be a nice touch if they were delivered with skill and subtlety. But Ridley Scott hammers it home like a schoolboy.
1. Prometheus, the god who gets his abdomen ripped out for giving fire to the humans.
2. Female Hero Scientist, rips out her belly to take out the human alien hybrid fetus.
3. The hybrid fetus impregnates the Giant Alien and their offspring rips its way out through the host's stomach. Predictably we get to see "The Alien".
4. An Engineer Alien, wearing a "Jesus Christ" cloak just in case we didn't get his point, has to drink a cup to kill himself to create the world.
5. Holloway allows himself to be burned to death carrying on the Prometheus theme.
This is "Rain in Spain/Plain" theme is predictable and boring.
Then there are the shoe horn moments - like Weyland's last dying words "So there's nothing out there?" And I see Ridley slapping a fat yellow post-it sticker marked "Atheism vs Religious" here.
The plot stinks. What we needed to see was a great sense of foreboding, dread, and an inescapable despair - see Shutter Island, Inception, and the first Alien movie. I thought the Chopin's piano music was foretelling that? Instead, we get slapstick horror!!! Loony Tunes stuff.
Ridley Scott seems to have lost his killer touch. To have clouded his film with 3rd rate religious metaphors, stupid scenarios. Its so sad to see a film with million dollar effects and the materials for an Epic get porked into a B-grade horror flick.
I think the problem with many famous directors is that as they become powerful they become complacent. Like the Emperor who was conned into wearing fake clothes made out of air - no one dares to contradict him, former colleagues who were instrumental in their success get forgotten. Only people who know how to stoke their egos get chosen to help. The end result is that we get mediocre stories like this.
6 points for the CGI, set design, and overall layout, 1 point for Ms Theron who looked stunning. Minus three for the story plots.