Movie review: Prometheus.

I won’t go too far into the plot with this review because if you plan on watching this film, and I suggest you do, then you won’t want to know how it pans out.

Creator of the Alien franchise Ridley Scott directed this prequel to the series, documenting a group of scientists in their two year voyage across the universe to answer what they believe is a call from an alien life force.

This film stars Michael Fassbender from Xmen: First Class and Inglourious Basterds, as he plays a homosexual robot (like C-3P0 but not orange).  Fassbender manages to create a somehow humanised character out of this machine; an achievement not shared by all the actors in this film, most of which being played by actual humans.

Charlize Theron’s character is running the expedition, a dominatrix-type in spandex whose primary skill is in somehow... somehow... managing to appear in no way attractive at any point.  Her mouth is moving and she’s saying some pretty awesome things like “My room, ten minutes” but delivers as though she’s thinking about her grandparents being at the premiere.

She could take some tips from Noomi Rapace (playing Elizabeth Shaw) who, even though her face has been ravaged by a few run-ins with the ugly brush, managed to make a self-caesarean look sexy.  If you can picture the scene: lying on her back in an enclosed capsule, near naked with mere bandages covering her inexplicables and clearly fresh off a workout in the studio gym; a machine laser cuts open her stomach, pulling a squealing octopus-alien from between her pancreas and colon, dark placenta dumped on her chest as she rips the umbilical cord from her ruptured woman-ness, blackened blood spraying the walls of her enclosure, all the while slippy octopi is lunging and squirming and grappling to get back inside its mother to complete the lovingness of incubation; and if you can avoid the frames where the camera pans to her head – it’s actually quite a sexy scene. 

Charlize Theron, meanwhile, is staggering about in the background in her tight pants like a foal on stilts, as though she’s wearing heels for the first time, waving her arms in the air and pleading for the audience’s attentions.  Being on the wrong side of young, maybe she should give up the lie and take on more realistic roles; perhaps memoirs of a monarch, or she could play a banged up old lesbian-whore from Michigan, who, again, somehow manages the significant achievement of making a lesbian sex-scene with Christina Ricci absolutely and unequivocally unsexy.  It’s downright wrong if not plain rude.  We’ve all watched Monster and there’s no coming back from that.  Ever. 

So moving away from the gory acting; this film is wall to wall special effects that’s outdone everything that’s come before it.  As blogger Wordswithfriendz noted, this movie belonged in the 90s.  While that’s true, fuck it, the 90s was awesome and give me more of it.

We’re not here for the acting - which is ideal because outside Fassbender it’s largely absent - we’re here for an escape to another world.  And Ridley Scott delivers.  The man-aliens were awesome, and while I was a tad confused about what they were angry about it didn’t matter.  Watching them kill people was brilliant.

And if you’re one of those people who think it’s too far-fetched to consider alien worlds may exist, have a look outside your car window... ours is ludicrous.

Four stars.