Alienating

Rating: 5/10 (1 June 2012)

In an effort to avoid disappointment (being a fan of the Alien mythology), I took my seat in the cinema with as open a mind as possible, expecting nothing at all.
Even the day after the late-night viewing, I'm still unsure of exactly how I feel about Prometheus, a very unique position for me regarding movies.
Perhaps the equal amount of positives and negatives I've taken from the film have left me in a state of shoulder-shrugging, a view seemingly at odds with the majority of polar opinions on IMDb.
As has been stated almost universally, the visuals and effects are of the high-tier calibre expected from the director who wowed audiences with Alien and Bladerunner (vastly overrated in my humble opinion).
I also concede that the plot was very loosely threaded and subject to random offshoots which ended without resolution, and themes that were vague and unexplored.
The pandering to religious audiences in having the two main scientists carrying crosses (Holloways tattoo is the other one) is insulting to science, a medium where factual answers are sought, in opposition to the hallelujah corner, who blindly buy into words on a book, written by goat-herders who believed that sneezing released demons.
I find it incredible that in this era of knowledge, people still ask such self-centred, obliviously naive questions such as 'why are we here'? Surely an understanding of DNA reveals the answer, despite this answer being so stark and brutal that billions of humans would rather invent self-pleasing fairy tales to avoid the truth.
We're here because our DNA constructed us, and our purpose is to survive, selfishly, at all costs. End of story.
Even though Rapace's character finds, not god, but alien creators (viable, since DNA is involved), she still searches blindly for something there is (God), not just a complete absence of evidence for, but also absolutely no rational inclination to believe in. How ignorant.
Anyway, I digress.
The acting was as expected for a movie carrying a handful of well-known faces, surrounded by mere cannon-fodder, with Fassbender's android providing much of the magnetism, despite some all-too human emotions and some strange behavioural decisions, such as the drink-droplet.
What I found utterly unconvincing was the blasé reaction from the other characters to the multiple deaths occurring around them, along with some of the inexplicable decisions a few of them made.
Spoilers: The awakened Space Jokey/Engineer's reaction to his discoverers was also a little 'unexpected' to say the least, but then if we're correct in believing that they're out to end our evolution, it may be unsurprising.
So many questions, so few answers. Was the initial Engineer who 'sparked' life on Earth acting in accordance with his species, or as an individual? Why did these beings stop visiting us? Are the Engineers' set on destroying us due to our parasitic and destructive nature? Why did Scott bother with the hastily, unexplored element of mortality, introduced by such a pointless character as the old man? Where did the chest-busters that killed the Engineers vanish to? Where was the intermittent reading of life coming from? Where was the Engineer who was discovered at the seat of the ship in Alien? Why is Rapace's character searching, when we all know that the faithful (so named for a reason) are content NOT to search, but to simply ACCEPT? As my wife has commented, this movie has more holes in it than swiss cheese.
That said, there were occasional scenes that were impressive, including the Med-lab abortion, but for such moments, there were a dozen unexplained ones, such as the paranoid Fifield seeking his own way back to the ship, highly unlikely behaviour for someone who is clearly spooked, or his bizarre return as a crazed zombie, induced by the oily substance.
So, in a nutshell, it was slightly confusing, with some juvenile attempts at philosophical depth, and a smattering of unlikely behavioural patterns, despite a fairly grand visual feast.
Back to the drawing board Ridley. And please don't follow this one up with an even more religious offering, for in this age the shadows in which a traditional God can survive are shrinking, and rightly so. Actual knowledge is far more rewarding than personal desires and fantasies.
A decent effort at a sci-fi epic, but it joins the ranks as an unfitting addition to the Alien mythos.