Blu-ray Review: Prometheus (2012)

"A return to form for the series."

(aka The Prologue)
Release Date: In theaters now.
Country: USA
Written by: Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts.
Directed by: Ridley Scott.
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba and Guy Pearce.

In 1979, Alien was released to mixed critical reviews. In 1982, Blade Runner flopped. Today, both movies are considered seminal works of Science Fiction, and they changed the way genre movies were made in many ways.

I mention all of this because Prometheus definitely seems to be polarizing audiences and critics alike, much in the same way.

This movie is so... complex, I suppose, that we can't talk about certain things beyond this point without diving into SPOILER TERRITORY. This movie, love it or hate it, will spawn plenty of discussion, and there are just some things we can't leave unsaid at this point. It would be impossible to fully dissect and discuss the movie and its themes in a simple review like this, but we will try to cover the important bits.

DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED.

*This review was originally written in 2012. 

Way before the Nostromo found LV-426 and the Weyland-Yutani Corp. decided that colonizing it was a grand idea, the Prometheus was sent on a trillion dollar expedition to LV-223 to meet their makers... literally!

A small crew of scientists believe that they have found the "Engineers" of human life via cave drawings, and decide that it's a good idea to go and seek them out, because they obviously want to meet us. Long story short, they make the trip to the distant planet of the Gods, find a bunch of dead space jockeys and a shitload of Black Goo that fucks everything up, and they end up realizing that they just should have stayed home.

"MY GOD, WE WERE SO WRONG!"

Prometheus is a gorgeous movie to behold, with over 1300+ FX shots and some set pieces that will amaze. We were immediately sucked into the world and enjoyed every minute its visceral experience. Ridley Scott knows how to craft a movie, both visually and aesthetically, and he's done so here in his usual good fashion. Prometheus feels more like Blade Runner than an Alien film in that its themes are buried in quiet subtext, and left for us to suss out on our own. Not much is blatantly given to us with this movie, and we're fine with that.

Story-wise we enjoyed the movie too, though a lot of fans seem to be of the opinion that while it all looked great, that the narrative was a mess full of unanswered questions and messy plot holes. The characters were weak in some ways and parts of the script were fairly vague... and we're not understanding all of the backlash.

Sure, we had questions that went unanswered, and others that we haven't quite reasoned out the answers to yet, but most of it was there for the taking, if you knew what to look for (at least we think so.)

"A KING HAS HIS REIGN, THEN HE DIES. IT'S INEVITABLE."

We'd be remiss if we didn't give some love to Michael Fassbender here. Sure, it seems as if the whole world is all up on his acting dick lately, singing his praises as one of the best actors around, but that's because he really is. Here, he plays David magnificently, and in a quiet and subdued way, he carries the movie.

We're big fans of Idris Elba here at THC, so aside from the odd accent he had going on, he was great to watch too. That guy is seriously underused in Hollywood, and we hope that changes soon. Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace were good here as well, although it's interesting to note that Theron's heartless bitch of a character was more appealing to us than Rapace's misguided good girl. More on that issue later.

HE'S SO CURIOUS!

There were definitely nods to Alien and Aliens to be found here as well; we even got a "we are leaving!" at one point which made us smirk. This movie operates on a different level than the others that it predates though; this is the mythology of the Alien stories (that so many have come to love over the years) unfolding before our eyes on screen. It's the cause to the later movie's effects. It is precursor more so than prequel. Still, we get versions of face-huggers, xenomorphs, chest-bursters, space jockeys... there are definitely connectors to the other films to be found here.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS LITTLE GUY...

What you have to understand about Prometheus, is that it is not an Alien film. It is a precursor to the world of the Alien films, and a part of their continuum, but precursor is the key word here. This movie is about creation and destruction. It's about insignificance and grandeur. It's about evolution, which we actually see happening before our eyes throughout the film, in different ways and on different scales; we see an Engineer on some planet (perhaps Earth) ingest a black goo which causes him to break down and reform on a molecular level, and the dispersal of his new DNA essentially creating life as we know it; we see a worm become a space cobra, which then jams itself down one of the scientist's throats, which then forces him to evolve; we see a single drop of a black genetic goo begin to mutate a man who then has sex with a woman, thus impregnating her, which leads her to "give birth" to a creature which ends up besting the Engineer which created its "mother"... it's some pretty crazy circle of life type of shit going on here.

SPACE COBRA!

David the robot illustrates and continually reinforces the point of the movie pretty well: Why did the Engineers create us? Because they could. Why did we create Synthetic life like David? Because we could. Why do they want us dead after going to the trouble of creating us? I don't know, maybe we disappointed them? Why do we destroy the things that we create? Because it's in our nature.

When meeting the Humans that it created, the Engineer is enraged to find that they themselves have engineered a life form, and so it rips the head off of what it most likely considers an abomination. Is it because we created synthetic life that was more efficient than we are, and the Engineer was jealous that did it better? Who knows, but it sounds reasonable to us.

Evolution isn't perfect and precise, and for every one being that evolves successfully, there are scores that do not. One of the best things about this movie is that we get to see evolution succeed and fail, sometimes both at once. It's an imperfect science, as illustrated here, and in that fact we get the Engineers purpose.

All of it, courtesy of the Black Goo, of course.

"BIG THINGS HAVE SMALL BBEGINNINGS."

The main flaw we had with Prometheus was its characters, and particularly Noomi Rapace's Shaw. Shaw pretty much embodies the misguided notion that we humans need the answers to everything, or else life is nothing but an empty, pointless void. She believes that not only did some crazy Space Gods create us, but that they left crude cave drawings behind for us to find, as an invitation to come and find them. She doesn't stop to think that maybe our creators don't want to meet us, or that doing so could shift the balance of creation in terrible ways. She doesn't even once consider that the drawings were a warning and not an invitation. She believes, she wants, but she never gets.

Even after everyone around her dies, including her true love, she still has to know "why?" As an illustration of the foolish nature of human curiosity, and the fact that we believe ourselves to be above all other life forms, she is frustratingly accurate. She even still insists on wearing her cross when she all but knows that there's probably no point behind it anymore. Why? That's how we're built.

"HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO GET YOUR ANSWERS?"

The only one who makes much sense here is David. The robot basically tells her that the "why" of it all is irrelevant, but what does he know, he's just a construct that we made. Then again, what do we know, were just constructs of a different sort, that the Engineers made.

I cant help but think that the Engineers are just constructs that a higher life-form made for their own purpose, and I am truly curious at what that could mean. The possibilities are endless. Then again, maybe my human mind isn't made for understanding such concepts. I still want to know though. I feel like I need to know.

Like David said though, it really is irrelevant.

"Oh God! I can see forever!"

The Internets are filled with a crazy buzz of questions about this movie that seem to have no answers. Are the answers there in the film, waiting for us to just open our eyes and comprehend them? Maybe. Did Ridley Scott half-ass this movie and leave us in the dark on purpose, or even by accident? Maybe, but we doubt it. We personally think that Prometheus is one of those movies that gives us most of the dots we need to be able to see the whole picture, but it's up to us to connect them.

Here are our answers to the questions that everyone seems to have. We may be 100% wrong with all of them, but we don't think we are. Then again we're human, what do we know:

• It is a prequel. Not directly, but it is related.
• The Greek Myth of the Titan Prometheus explains a lot about the movie.
• The Black Goo seems to be a genetic mutagen that affects different beings in different ways, though it does evolve whatever it touches. Maybe it's the physical essence of evolution?
• The Engineers create and destroy as they see fit, just like their human creations do.
• The Engineer at the beginning was essentially giving birth to human life.
• David is the key to answering most of the movies questions.
• David put the Black Goo in the Holloway's drink to see its effect; maybe it was a test to see if it would keep Weyland alive, or maybe just to see what it would do. Either way, a test.
• Janek either learns (in a deleted scene that we weren't shown) that the planet is a weapons dump of sorts, or he pieces it together because he has a brain and experience with such things. I assumed the same thing that he did before he came to that conclusion on screen, and I'm just a guy watching a movie. Weapons dump or not, it's obvious that the planet was a way-station or storage facility of some sort.
• Maybe the Engineers decided to destroy the earth because we disappointed them, or they wanted to try something new. They are Gods or God-Like creatures after all, can we even hope to comprehend their machinations enough to understand them?
• Why did the Engineer kill everyone towards the end? Because "Fuck you, I made you, you don't wake me up from my nap and question me!" That's why.
• Also, he rips David's head off because he's engaged that his creations created something that dared address him, or that they created a life form that was better than the one that he did. Gods are vain. At least that makes a lot of sense to us.
• Being a Trillionaire probably made Weyland feel as if he were a God in his own right, hence him wanting to meet other Gods and bargain for some immortality. Vanity and entitlement.
• While we're on the subject of Weyland here, why was Guy Pearce in this movie? We're guessing a lot of his part hit the cutting room floor, and that we'll see it somewhere down the road, but as it stands now, Weyland/Pearce's parts seemed choppy and out of place. There just has to be more.
• It seems as if the whole movie is a cautionary tale about lesser beings reaching too high above themselves and paying the price for it. Like Icarus.
• There are also, like it or not, some Religious undertones (and maybe even commentary) present here. It's fitting, since Shaw is motivated almost solely by faith and the need to know everything about life and creation.
• Hell, Shaw admitted herself that she was barren, and yet through the magic of the Black Goo, she finds herself preggers. Virgin birth, anyone?
• You really want a mind twister? Movies.com did an interview with Ridley Scott in which he had this to say regarding the Engineers and why they might want to destroy us: "But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, "Let's send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it." Guess what? They crucified him."
• Remember that according to the Bible, God flooded the Earth once because people pissed him off too. It's really the same theme being explored here.

YOU SHOULD HAVE HAD THIS THING MAP OUT AN EXIT ROUTE FOR YOU!

We loved Prometheus, though it is fair to say that it may have left a bit too much open to interpretation for the person to fully embrace. It's as gorgeous as it is flawed, but for all of its flaws it is a smart movie that makes you think. I will really have to see this again, hopefully in an extended-cut form, before the truth about what this movie is or isn't truly sinks in, but as of right now we are still one of the lovers of this movie.

I personally think that the "missing answers" that most of the haters are complaining about are right there for us to see, but we have to look hard and interpret them as we will. That's something that I don't mind doing during a good movie. I can understand how some folks hate it though. Kinda sad.

Down the road this movie may become an A+ classic in our minds, but as of right now it's a solid B+. Either way, we need to see this one again now that our minds are totally hype and expectation free. You should go and see it too.

B+

Prometheus is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

Oh Charlize...

Blu-ray Review: Aliens (1986)

"Mother vs. Mother."

(aka Game Over!)
Release Date: July 18th, 1986.
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: James Cameron and David Giler.
Directed by: James Cameron.
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser and Carrie Henn.

If anyone was going to follow-up the Ridley Scott classic and do it any justice, it was James Cameron.

Fresh off his work on another genre classic, The Terminator, Cameron took the reigns of the Alien franchise and pumped it full of adrenaline, made it bigger in scope, and far more frantic.

57 years after the events of the first film, a salvage team finds Ripley's escape craft, where she's deep in cryo-sleep. Back on Earth, she's raked over the coals by corporate assholes who want to hold her responsible for blowing up The Nostromo, and she finds out that her daughter grew old and died while she drifted through space for 60 years, so to say she's not happy is an understatement. At least she still has Jonesy.

BUT ALAS, JONESY HAD TO BE PUT DOWN FOR CRYO-DISTEMPER.

The moon of LV-426 has since been colonized, because that's what corporations do, and when the company loses contact with the people of the settlement, they immediately ask Ripley to head back there as an advisor to a group of Colonial Marines who are tasked with finding out what happened. She agrees to go, so long as they promise that they're going to destroy whatever they find there, and not bring anything back to study.

STOP STUDYING IT!

Things don't go well for anyone on LV-426, mainly because the Aliens rule the planet thanks to their Queen Mother, who gives birth to them like her vagina is a clown car. They find a little girl named Newt who Ripley takes an immediate shining to, and when they find themselves trapped on the planet, with a horde of Aliens descending on them, it looks as if Ripley is going to lose another "daughter."

LOOK OUT, GIRL!

You really think that Ripley takes that shit lying down?

 OH HELL NO!

As with Alien, what's not good about Aliens?

Alright, maybe it ditched the Haunted House creepiness that made the first one such a classic, but it gave us it's own brand of terror in an all-out Human vs. Alien war, which had us biting our nails just the same. The thought of there a seemingly endless swarm of Xenomorphs upped the terror factor and then some. And the action was awesome. I mean, Vasquez yelling "let's rock!" and lighting up the aliens, even though doing so could have caused the whole place to go up, was just bad-ass.

The cast is even better this time out too, with Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton giving us two of the most memorable characters in all of movies. Bill Paxton was especially scene-stealing as Hudson, with his one-liners, he practically stole the movie. God he was such a talented guy. R.I.P.

The story also took a deeper turn with Ripley finding out that her daughter died while she was in deep cryo-sleep, and then finding Newt and deciding that she was going to care for the girl. The whole surrogate mother thing added a ton of weight to the story, especially the showdown at the end with the Queen Alien.

"Get away from her, you bitch!" will always one of THE best and most iconic lines ever spoken on film.

THEY SHOULD HAVE MADE A SPIN-OFF PREQUEL ABOUT THESE TWO. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT.

Too many cool characters died in this one.

THIS IS RAPHAEL. HE WAS JUST PROTECTING HIS MOM WHEN SOMEONE MOWED HIM DOWN WITH A HAIL OF BULLETS. #STOPTHEMADNESS.

The way things ended up in Alien 3 made this ending bittersweet... unless of course you just pretend that the series ends with Aliens, then it's all good.

"MOOOSTLY."

There are some great practical effects in this film, featuring the Aliens in different stages, a magnificent Queen Alien, and even some cocooned people. There's also plenty of bloody death to be seen, of both the human and alien variety.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE HERE. SORRY."

Nope, just the naked Aliens again.

BUT HICKS WAS SCHEMING ON THAT ASS SINCE THE FIRST DAY.

"Get away from her you bitch!"
"That's it man, Game over, man. Game Over!"
"Why don't you put her in charge!"
"They mostly come at night. Mostly."

"Have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
"No, have you?"

"RAWR."

It's rare that a sequel comes as close to being as good as the first movie, especially when that first movie is as perfect as Alien was. Somehow though, James Cameron managed to match the original for quality, and some would even say surpass it in every way.

What an excellent 1-2 punch these first two flicks make, and by itself, Aliens is a stellar example of Sci-Fi done right. 

A+

Aliens is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

We still miss the hell out of this guy.

Blu-ray Review: Alien (1979)

"In space, no one can hear you scream."

(aka Franchise Incoming.)
Release Date: June 22nd, 1979.
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett.
Directed by: Ridley Scott.
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, and Veronica Cartwright.

Alien is the seminal Haunted House picture, although it takes place on a spaceship and doesn't involve ghosts at all... the aesthetic of a Haunted House story, however, is something that is alive and very well in this movie. It's essentially a bunch of people alone in a dark and sprawling mansion, all of them trying to survive the thing that's going bump in the night.

With Alien and Blade Runner, Ridley Scott helped to change the validity of Sci-Fi movies forever. It also helped to legitimize the horror genre, giving audiences a monster movie that wasn't cheesy and that didn't feel fake. Many have tried to reproduce Alien's Gothic horror in the years since its release, but it still stands in a class all by itself.

The commercial spacecraft Nostromo is heading home to Earth when the ship's computer, Mother, picks up a mysterious beacon from nearby planet, LV-426, and wakes the crew out of their deep space sleep. They aren't happy about it all all, but since they're contractually (and maybe even morally) obligated to checkout any such signal, they head to the planet's surface to investigate.

PRETEND THIS SHIT DIDN'T HAPPEN, AND JUST LEAVE.

What they find is a derelict spaceship that has a bunch of slimy eggs in its hold, and when one of the crew members, Kane, gets too close to one of them, it opens up, and out jumps a face-hugger which wraps itself around his neck, and jams its overpositor down his throat. They rush him back to the ship for help, where acting commander Ripley refuses to let them aboard, because there's an Alien attached to Kane's face, and screw that. Science officer Ash has different plans however, and lets them in.

NOPE.

Without spoiling anything for the uninitiated (which at this point, nearly 40 years later, should be a small number, but still), the Alien feeds, grows, and proceeds to stalk the crew through the dark corridors of The Nostromo, because it's perfect organism and that's what it does.

Genuine terror ensues.

THE XENOMORPH.

What can you really say about this movie other than it's perfect?

Along with Star Wars, Alien ushered in a new era of Sci-Fi entertainment, but did so in a darker and more sinister way. It won an Academy Award, launched Ridley Scott's career, and is considered not only one of the best Sci-Fi films ever made, but one of the best films period.

The creature design is perfect and terrifying; the ship's interior and exteriors are superb; it's dark, shadowy, and oozes a creepy atmosphere; it features a great cast, many of whom were in the prime of their careers; and it gave birth to many genre tropes, amongst them: a group of people trapped in a confined space with a monster, as well as Space Horror in general. It truly changed the genre, and film making forever.

Honestly, any Space Horror flick that you've seen since, owes its existence to Alien.

Oh, and let's not forget that Ellen Ripley is also one of the best female ass-kickers in all of cinema, and no doubt inspired many who came after her, like Sarah Conner, for example.

IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU MEOW.

The movie feels a tiny bit dated when it comes to the computers and technology on display in The Nostromo. Small complaint, but it's really noticeable.

THE HORROR OF IT ALL STANDS UP BEAUTIFULLY THOUGH.

The kill scenes were fairly quick-cut, and the gorehound in me wishes that they had been a bit bloodier. Another small complaint.

PRACTICAL EFFECTS MAGIC.

The Xenomorph wreaks bloody havoc on the crew, and of course there's the all-time classic dinner scene that was so terrifying, that the actors reactions to it are real; no one told them what was going to happen, so Veronica Cartwright's cry of "Oh God!" is 100% genuine.

"HELLO MY BABY, HELLO MY DARLIN'..."

Sigourney Weaver in her undies, and the alien runs around naked for the whole movie.

IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR SIGOURNEY WEAVER'S NIPPLES SCREAM.

"Here kitty, kitty, kitty."
"You bitch!"
"You... are... my lucky star."

AND ASH'S WORDS HERE WERE SINISTER AND PERFECT.

Alien is a seminal Horror flick, a seminal Sci-Fi flick, and a seminal film in general. It upped the ante on Haunted House flicks, creature features, and Horror films in general, and has seldom been matched for quality in the 38 years since its release.

Perfection.

A+

Alien is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

Sigourney Weaver was quite a dish back then... and later in life too, as it turns out.