High Hopes Dashed

Rating: 2/10 (2 February 2013)

Okay, I'm gonna cut Ridley Scott a lot of slack with this film. I like his work generally: Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, and of course Alien. With Prometheus he's obviously trying to create a prequel to the Alien franchise, and that's fine; it could use one. And frankly, I loved Alien, despite its many flaws and improbabilities; loved it for the whole "film noir in outer space" genre that it spawned. Loved that its brooding darkness and menace enabled it to transcend the whole guy-in-a-rubber-suit alien thing. (And, I loved that Scott deliberately didn't give his actors the heads-up about the infamous chest-burster scene, so that he could capture some authentic shock reactions on film. Now that takes cojones!)
Let's face it, the whole squeaky-clean Star Trek/2001: A Space Odyssey style of science fiction was begging for a flipside, and Alien was it. With it, space became gloomy, dirty, depressing and full of hidden danger. And, in a complete break with tradition, the first sequel, Aliens, from the hand of James "Titanic" Cameron, was as good as—some say better than—the original! (Alien 3 faltered somewhat, despite having David Fincher (Se7en/Fight Club) at the helm, and Alien Resurrection was pure crap on a cracker.)
But, there's only so much slack one can cut, before the whole "willing suspension of disbelief" thing falls to pieces.
In order to move the plot forward, Scott has his characters do unforgivably stupid things, time and time again. And not incidentally or fleetingly stupid. We're talking relentless, towering stupidity that even stupid people would find insulting. Once I could deal with; twice, maybe. But stupidity as their go-to behavior? Please. One would have to assume, if you're going to send a bunch of guys out into space on a potentially dangerous mission, one with so many unknowns, that you'd get some pretty highly trained specialists to go along, wouldn't you? Yet one of these guys, when confronted by a completely unknown alien life form and knowing absolutely nothing about it, sticks his face inches away from it and teases the damn thing! And he KEEPS doing it, even after it makes an obvious threat display. Does the word "moron" spring to mind? The guy got nothing less than what he deserved.
Speaking of moronic the crew lands on a completely unknown planet, right? One they know absolutely nothing about. They're there for a few hours, nowhere near long enough to learn anything significant; they're exploring an unknown alien structure, one that's possibly brimming with life-threatening hazards; and, just because the atmosphere turns out to have an earthlike mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, this guy immediately removes his helmet and takes a deep breath! Is he TRYING to die? (Question: where the hell did the oxygen come from, anyway? There's obviously no plant life) And by the way, what the hell was Charlize Theron's character there for, other than to look hot in a skin-tight jumpsuit? And maybe to give the film some big-name draw. What was her role in this mission, other than to get in the way of people doing their jobs, annoy them, and generally behave like a tight-assed, obstinate bitch? I really couldn't figure that one out.
Well, I could go on. This COULD have been a brilliant movie. And to be fair to it, it does have a one or two pretty good nail-biting moments; and, what with the Terragen 2-generated alien landscapes and H.R. Giger-inspired interiors (a la the original Alien) it does have a great look.
The Alien franchise had (and still has) a lot of unexplored territory that could be mined to create some really innovative, strange and exciting story lines. I hope someone still will. Sadly, it would seem that Scott is no longer the guy to do it.