Smoke, Not Fire

This is the problem with pre-screening hype - it gets expectations up.  Instead of just having a nice little movie, it has to be the BIGGEST THING EVER!!  Instead of showcasing stylish framing and camerawork, it has to SHOCK YOUR SENSES!!  And instead of adding a puzzle piece or two to an existing storyline, it has to ANSWER ALL THE BIG QUESTIONS!!

Prometheus does none of those things, although much is promised.  It's not a bad film; in fact, director Ridley Scott shows once again that he knows how to both capture breath-taking beauty through a camera lens and how to create memorable environments for his characters to cavort within.  But ultimately, Prometheus is a movie that didn't need to be made, much less hyped to within an inch of its life.

The chief problem here is Alien, which shot Scott to A list stardom some thirty years ago.  (His position there was cemented with Blade Runner a few years later, a two-fer that made him a science fiction darling, if not a downright wunderkind.)  Alien is so good and stands up so well after all these years that . . . well, let's put it this way.  Alien is the horror equivalent of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Lee didn't write a sequel, prequel, or much of anything afterward.  It's not that Prometheus is bad; it's that it's not Alien, yet it tries to answer the questions Alien left unanswered.  Here's a tip, Hotshot.  There's no reason to answer them and trying to just feels forced.  There's a heavy patina of philosophy and theology coating Prometheus and it doesn't fit well.  It certainly can fit well in science fiction; in fact, I've said repeatedly that science fiction is a genre that is ideally suited to asking the Big Questions such as "What makes us human?" and "What really matters?"  But just because a film asks those questions doesn't make it a Good Film.


Alien is all about cramped spaces, shadowy things-that-want-to-kill-us, and figuring out how to survive as the crew are picked off, one by one.  (And a cat.)  Prometheus can't do that, because we already know what was a mystery in the first film.  We already know what the aliens are and how awful they are.  We already know the shape of the ship and the look of the bridge.  Wisely, Prometheus doesn't try to flat-out copy that.  We get a large cast of scientists who have followed cave paintings to a faraway moon in hopes of "meeting our maker."

The problems begin early.  The first scene, which is lovely and terrifying in turns, is not needed and removes any trace of mystery from the rest of the film.  The film further suffers from too large a cast - it never gels as an ensemble and there's not enough screen time to develop each character, so a few become throwaways.  The scientists aren't particularly curious about the alien civilization they've discovered, they are overly mercenary, and they make some deeply stupid decisions.  While Alien gave us Ellen Ripley,  Prometheus thinks simply passing the Bechdel Test automatically makes it a Worthy Film.  Charlize Theron's Vickers has daddy issues and Noomi Rapace's Shaw has way too much symbolism tied up in jewelry.  Alien gave us a treacherous android and a shadowy corporate agenda.  While Prometheus retains both, those elements have lost the power to shock us.  Oh, and sex is bad and pregnancy is a horror.


Prometheus is not without its moments, however.  Michael Fassbender as the android David is especially noteworthy and Idris Elba as the captain could be - I suspect there's a scene or two on the cutting room floor that should have been left in there on that score.  The scope and sweep of the cinematography is jaw-dropping and deliberately invokes David Lean (maybe a key to the android's name, now that I think about it), especially Lean's masterwork Lawrence of Arabia.

In short, Prometheus wants to be an Important Film and it tries mightily to be that.  Unfortunately, along the way, Scott substituted bombast for joy.

Assemble!

With the May 4 release of The Avengers, the summer blockbuster season is officially underway.  Preliminary reports indicate that Avengers hasn't just broken the records for opening weekend receipts, it well-nigh shattered it.  The final Harry Potter film had held that record and early reports have Avengers topping the boy wizard by approximately $40 million.

Of course, box office receipts are no indication of quality.  Plenty of movies (Transformers, anybody?) make money by the boatload but aren't very good examples of storytelling.  Michael Bay can make things go "boom," but I've never been impressed with his stories or characters.  My second "of course" is that things that go "boom" can be a lot of fun and sometimes you just want to munch popcorn and detach.  In that case, go rent John Carter, which really wasn't that bad.

Avengers has been years in the making.  Literally.  Both Iron Man films, Hulk, and Thor all were leading up to this - a team picture.  Audiences got used to a teaser for the next film appearing in the credits and to seeing Clark Gregg's Phil Coulson pop up here and there to help tie things together.  Samuel L. Jackson was cast as Nick Fury - casting planned to the point of having the Nick Fury of the Avenger Ultimates world be drawn as Jackson.  Joss Whedon was tapped to write the screenplay* as well as direct and geekdom held its collective breath.  This was it.  Whedon was either going to rocket to glory (and sort of vicariously taking all of us who believed in him with him to the A list) or this was Not Going to Work.  It was not a sure thing.  Superhero movies can be tricky.  Large ensemble casts even more so.

It works.  It works!!  IT WORKS!!!  I felt a bit like Victor Frankenstein shouting to the heavens when the monster took its first breath.  It really IS alive!  (OK, it's not a perfect metaphor.  Work with me here.)

I don't say this purely as a fan of Whedon.  Most people know that I had my problems with Dollhouse which I found to be deeply, deeply flawed.  And Buffy has some plot holes and misfires.  Hey, you try doing seven seasons of hour-long television without the occasional misstep.  Everything that made me adore Whedon's work in the first place - it's in Avengers.  The dialogue is snappy, the visual puns are there, the characters snark and quibble and fight - and still get the job done.  Women are not weak, fragile things that must be saved (thank you for getting Black Widow right!) and the men are not surprised by women acting as equals.  Characters are drawn, not quick-sketched, and there's enough screen time to care about all of them (I, for one, was never really a Hawkeye fan.  Now I am).  Characters are fundamentally changed and yes, there's loss.  And hope.  And glory.  And at the end, not everything is okay because the world can't change that much and everything be okay.

Hollywood is notorious for copying success, so my hope is that the Suits will see beyond the explosions to the characters and decide that strong women aren't scary.  Think of that - a slew of movies with strong female characters.  There's still a ways to go - I do not think Avengers passes the Bechdel Test and Black Widow isn't on as much merchandising as Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Cap.  (Then again, neither is Fury or Hawkeye, so there's that.)

Go see The Avengers.  It's a big-screen movie, so see it there - and be sure to stay through ALL of the credits.  All of them, you hear me?

*Whedon shares the writing credit with Zak Penn, who's no slouch in his own right. (I like Alphas, for instance and am looking forward to the second season.)  Apparently, though Whedon didn't think much of Penn's original script.