Film Review | Prometheus (2012)

I've noted in the past that returning to a franchise a long time after the last installment is a potentially hazardous thing to do in the film business. You run the risk of upsetting a lot of die-hard fans or even tarnishing the legacy and image of well-respected pieces of cinema. The bigger and better thought of your original film is, the higher the risk you are taking. Ridley Scott obviously didn't read my advice, returning to the Alien franchise (or is he?) as director for the first time in over three decades since he helmed the original in 1979. Since Scott kicked things off, we've had three sequels of varying quality, but undoubtedly one of the best loved horror sci-fi franchises ever created. We've also had two genre crossover entries in the Alien Versus Predator spin-off franchise, which hardly did the series' credibility any favours; Prometheus is therefore Scott's chance to pull the film franchise he spawned back on track, but also has the potential to disappoint many who revere Scott as the man who first brought us Ellen Ripley and the xenomorph.

Prometheus tells the story of archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) who, after discovering several images from different ancient civilisations all including the same star map, become part of the crew of the eponymous spaceship on a mission to discover the secrets of who created humanity. Amongst the crew is android David (Michael Fassbender), whose agenda becomes more and more suspect as Shaw, Holloway and the rest of the crew begin to uncover the secrets of the moon they have landed on, LV-223.

The film's "shared DNA" with Alien, as Scott has described it, is something of a double-edged sword: it lends the film credibility, and gives ample context to the universe in which it is set; but it also sets the film up continually to comparisons with Scott's iconic franchise opener, which is essentially setting it up to disappoint. The only film in the Alien series that comes close to the quality of the original is the first sequel, Aliens, and one of the key reasons behind its success is that it didn't try to emulate the original. As far as a sequel can be, it was its own film; it continued the story of Ripley and the xenomorphs, but was also individualistic in terms of genre and style.

Ignoring for the moment that Prometheus inhabits the same universe as the Alien franchise, it's a fairly solid sci-fi thriller in its own right. Rapace takes a little while to find her feet, but becomes a compelling protagonist as the film wears on, and by the time the final act began I was rooting for her all the way. Fassbender's performance as David is also compelling and rich, with the android ironically displaying the most depth of any character. Idris Elba and Charlize Theron do well with what they're given, but never really have the chance to fully flesh out their roles. The rest of the cast are fine, but their characters feel more functional than anything else.

Scott also shows he still knows his way around chillingly horrific sequences. There are several genuinely tense and claustrophobic horror scenes, the best of which involving a hi-tech automated surgery table. The only problem is, I came away wishing there were a few more. When Prometheus is making you squirm in your seat it becomes an adrenaline-pumping, terrifying experience. But Scott leaves too long between these moments. Whilst much of the mythology and science is genuinely intriguing and intricately constructed, it's never nearly as compelling as the scary parts, and at times the film begins to get too wrapped up in its own saga instead of providing something a little more entertaining.

Even though it's arguably not part of the Alien franchise (arguments as to exactly how it fits in with the original quadrilogy will almost certainly go on indefinitely, and to give my definitive take on it would involve dropping some massive spoilers), Prometheus lends itself almost too easily to comparison with it as mentioned earlier. It's never as good as Alien or Aliens. But it is superior to Alien³, and is a deeper and better crafted film than Alien: Resurrection.

Unfortunately for Prometheus, when it is inevitably compared to the first film it will almost always fall short: Shaw is not Ripley, and Rapace is not Sigourney Weaver; Prometheus the ship, whilst impressively realised, will never have the gritty, rough-and-ready charm of the Nostromo; the majority of its crew will never feel as human as Ripley's charmingly workaday colleagues. Fassbender is the sole element that matches up to his Alien counterpart, giving just as enigmatic and unsettling performance as Ian Holm's Ash. But whilst the comparisons are there, it's not fair to judge it solely through comparison. On its own merits, Prometheus is an enjoyable and well made film. It is flawed, but there's enough here that works to make it a compelling and worthwhile watch.

7/10

Film Review | The Reaping (2007)

When your horror film bases itself around one supernatural concept, particularly one based in religion, generally you need to go down one of two routes. Either you establish from the start that, yes, something other-worldly is afoot and extrapolate all your scares and plot devices around that (The Omen being a key example of this); or you choose to keep your audience guessing, hinting that the answer to whatever is going bump in the night can either be explained through science or a series of plausible events or could equally be something genuinely not of this realm, only revealing which it is at the very end, or maybe keeping things ambiguous even after the credits roll (El Orfanato provides a suitable demonstration here). Deviation from these tried and tested routes can produce pleasing results, but is a road which must be trodden carefully. Otherwise you end up with The Reaping.

After introducing Katherine (Hilary Swank) and Ben (Idris Elba) as a pair of university colleagues who specialise in debunking supposed miracles, the story takes them to the small town of Haven when Doug Blackwell (David Morrissey), one of the town's inhabitants, asks them to investigate why the local river has turned red. As Katherine and Ben investigate, more curious phenomena occur including frogs falling from the sky and mass death of cattle herds, complicating matters further and leading the locals to believe they are experiencing an onset of Biblical plagues.

The Reaping has a few features going for it. The cast are strong and do the best they can with the material available. Swank and Elba are a believable platonic pair and provide a good foundation upon which the film can be built; it is when they spend more and more time separate from each other as the film progresses that many of the cracks in other areas become very apparent. Morrissey is sound but miscast, as his southern states accent is terrible to the point of distraction. Unfortunately, once you've managed to get used to the way he's talking around two thirds in, his character, along with the rest of the film, takes a dramatic turn for the worst.

Structurally, The Reaping is a complete mess. After a promising beginning full of religion versus science, the second act entangles itself in backstories, dreams, hallucinations and local lore distancing the audience from the relatively strong opening. Motivations become unclear, character arcs become confused or are forgotten completely (Elba's Ben goes from potentially interesting to woefully one-dimensional). Tired horror tropes get thrown into the mix with no reason behind them. The whole thing stumbles with where to go next.

Which leads to the final act. After spending around an hour building up the ambiguity and tension over whether the apparent plagues hitting Haven can be explained through scientific methods or whether there is something more supernatural about them, the film suddenly chooses to remove any uncertainty, making things much less interesting in a manner that is at best underwhelming, at worst a slap in the face to the audience. From this point on, things go further and further downhill. Characters begin behaving completely at odds with what we've seen previously, and previously established ideas are carelessly dispatched with. There is one unexpected turn which, had it not been preceded by so much schlock, could actually have been quite interesting, but it's one of a crowd of twists, far too many for the film to be able to handle at this stage. We end up with a finale so overblown and ludicrous it's almost laughable.

Possibly the most frustrating thing of all about The Reaping is that, after the credits rolled and I thought back over what I'd just watched, I came to the conclusion that the concept behind it is actually not bad at all as religious horror goes. With a half decent script and a director with some idea of what to do, alongside the able cast already in place, The Reaping could have been a worthwhile film. Instead, this is one of the sloppiest and most worthless horror films I've watched for some time.

2/10