From The Back Row... Prometheus (2012)
On admittedly quite different levels I can safely say that I've enjoyed all of the films in the Alien franchise. That's not to say that I think they're all perfect (the third one was a struggle, the fourth starts OK but loses its way long before the ridiculous ending) but they've all been different. And different is a good thing, isn't it?
So, after a lot of rumour and a long gestation, it was with some trepidation that I stole into my local fleapit to check out the not-quite-a-sequel-yet-not-quite-a-prequel that is Prometheus. The word on the street (by which I mean a few people I know who'd seen it and subsequently posted about it on Facebook) was mixed. The lights dimmed, the sound of Pearl & Dean washed over me and, eventually, the movie began.
H'mm.
Afterwards, as the end credits rolled, I lingered in my seat wondering what I'd just experienced. Leaving the auditorium one of the ushers asked me what I thought of the film, a question that I could only shrug an answer to. It hadn't been what I'd expected (there's no way it could ever have lived up to the hype) but it hadn't been much of anything else either, had it? I decided to sleep on it and see what thoughts came to me in the morning. Morning came, coffee was drunk, and I set about tearing the storyline a new one as I replayed the movie in my mind...
[cue credits, watch out for spoilers]
Somewhere on picturesque cliff a large, possibly rubber-skinned, man stands and looks up at the sky. He's slightly odd looking, with pale rubber skin, thus implying he's an alien. He watches the sky, drinks something particularly nasty, and slowly disintegrates so as to highlight that what we're about to see is "deep" and "important".
Several thousand years later an android Pinocchio, who has grown up with something of a David Bowie "The Man Who Fell To Earth" fixation, is sent to the far depths of the galaxy by Gepetto on a quest to find God and immortality (well, you would wouldn't you?). Whilst the human crew (consisting of scientists*, a Teutonic ice maiden and a hand-picked crew of malcontents**) sleep he rifles through Linguaphone's back catalogue, becomes acquainted with British cinema, shows off his basketball prowess and lets his voyeuristic tendencies manifest. After two years their ship arrives at its destination, a large planet that closely resembles Iceland.
According to the scientists, this is where God lives; not only do they have a spiffing PowerPoint presentation to prove it but they've also talked some guy from Neighbours (who is, it transpires, Gepetto to the android Pinocchio) into bankrolling their expedition. As luck would have it one of the scientists has read some Erich von Danniken, knows God's post code, and gets the ship to land right next to some weird alien structures. What are the chances?
After Gepetto appears to confuse the crew some more, and the Teutonic ice maiden has laid down the law to the scientists (who are sadly far too busy foreshadowing an 'important' plot point to do much about it), our heroes are let loose to investigate the alien ruins. In short order they make a couple of typical "we're really intelligent but we're going to do something dumb" decisions to keep the movie ticking over, then stumble across an ancient stash of thermos flasks.
The scientists find the big head from from Duran Duran's Wild Boys video, take it back to the ship and do some weird stuff to it (they don't hook it up to a karaoke machine though, which is a shame). Not to be left out Pinocchio pockets one of the thermos flasks, possibly in the mistaken belief that it's a cocktail shaker, but more likely to let the audience know that he has his own agenda (crumbs, I wasn't expecting that to happen).
In order to keep some momentum in the plot two of the scientists, the Abbot & Costello comedic relief of the film, end up spending the night in the ruins so you know 'something bad is going to happen'. That these guys are hand-picked to be there, but turn out to be as dumb as a box of rocks (one of them maps the ruins they're in.. and then gets lost finding his way back to the ship) lets you know that they ain't going to be making it to the end credits.
Back on the ship the 'scientist who isn't Tom Hardy' forgets to take his ADHD medication, and duly turns into a bit of an arse (there's probably a reason for this on the cutting room floor). To cheer him up Pinocchio displays some dodgy bar-tending skills, thus underlining his agenda as 'something bad'. The captain, who has a thing for 1970's American singer/songwriters, uses a page out of the Howard Wolowitz book of How To Chat Up Ladies to seduce the Teutonic ice maiden for no other reason that A) he can and B) to prove that the ice maiden isn't really as cold as our android Pinocchio.
It also C) allows the bridge of the multi-million dollar spaceship to be left unmanned so that no-one hears what happens to the comedic relief, still lost in the ruins (and, typically, their systems don't have a back up installed for later listening). The 'scientist who isn't Tom Hardy', still being an arse, hooks up with the 'scientist with the Dragon tattoo' to labour a plot-point to go with the earlier foreshadowing. The next morning the sun rises over Iceland and we're finally all set for "really bad things" to start happening.
In amongst the ruins the thermos flasks have leaked, an occurrence which doesn't help the Pinocchio-induced hangover of the 'scientist who isn't Tom Hardy' (but luckily the Teutonic ice maiden sorts him out with a nice Vindaloo, proving that she might be the only one on the ship with any brains). A short distance away Pinocchio has found God's home movies, his penny whistle and his TomTom GPS; the importance of these finds is emphasized by the stirring 1970's war film music that pops up to underline how important 'this' is (the effect is lessened by the same stirring music being used throughout the film to highlight tension or to underline an actor's emoting, so much so that you wish there was a mute button).
The 'scientist with the Dragon tattoo' gets some good news, closely followed by some bad news, and is drugged into unconsciousness. Time passes, possibly in a cut scene again somewhere on the floor of an editing suite, but when she wakes up she initially believes herself to be Lisbeth Salander again. Then she remembers the important piece of foreshadowing from earlier, at which point the film jumps the shark (or, more specifically, the squid).
Gepetto reappears and Pinocchio's actions are sort of explained. It helps that, despite being a multi-billionaire businessman, Gepetto is also as dumb as a box of rocks. God turns out to be a bit of a douche, chucks his toys out of his pram, and things go just about as bad as you'd expect them to. The accordion-playing ship's captain makes a heroic decision, shortly after which things go bang, with beautiful explosions over Icelandic skies.
The 'scientist with the Dragon tattoo' crawls out from under some wreckage, finds Pinocchio and puts him in a bag for being a naughty boy, then sets off to find God and give him a bit of a talking to.
[fade to black]
[beat]
There now follows a short sequence for all of the fan boys in the audience.
The end.
* The head scientist (who looks like Tom Hardy, but not as hard) appears to be suffering from ADHD throughout, pissing Pinocchio off, but the other head scientist (who may or may not have a Dragon tattoo) loves him anyway.
** A right bunch of losers and chancers.
So, after a lot of rumour and a long gestation, it was with some trepidation that I stole into my local fleapit to check out the not-quite-a-sequel-yet-not-quite-a-prequel that is Prometheus. The word on the street (by which I mean a few people I know who'd seen it and subsequently posted about it on Facebook) was mixed. The lights dimmed, the sound of Pearl & Dean washed over me and, eventually, the movie began.
H'mm.
Afterwards, as the end credits rolled, I lingered in my seat wondering what I'd just experienced. Leaving the auditorium one of the ushers asked me what I thought of the film, a question that I could only shrug an answer to. It hadn't been what I'd expected (there's no way it could ever have lived up to the hype) but it hadn't been much of anything else either, had it? I decided to sleep on it and see what thoughts came to me in the morning. Morning came, coffee was drunk, and I set about tearing the storyline a new one as I replayed the movie in my mind...
[cue credits, watch out for spoilers]
Somewhere on picturesque cliff a large, possibly rubber-skinned, man stands and looks up at the sky. He's slightly odd looking, with pale rubber skin, thus implying he's an alien. He watches the sky, drinks something particularly nasty, and slowly disintegrates so as to highlight that what we're about to see is "deep" and "important".
Several thousand years later an android Pinocchio, who has grown up with something of a David Bowie "The Man Who Fell To Earth" fixation, is sent to the far depths of the galaxy by Gepetto on a quest to find God and immortality (well, you would wouldn't you?). Whilst the human crew (consisting of scientists*, a Teutonic ice maiden and a hand-picked crew of malcontents**) sleep he rifles through Linguaphone's back catalogue, becomes acquainted with British cinema, shows off his basketball prowess and lets his voyeuristic tendencies manifest. After two years their ship arrives at its destination, a large planet that closely resembles Iceland.
According to the scientists, this is where God lives; not only do they have a spiffing PowerPoint presentation to prove it but they've also talked some guy from Neighbours (who is, it transpires, Gepetto to the android Pinocchio) into bankrolling their expedition. As luck would have it one of the scientists has read some Erich von Danniken, knows God's post code, and gets the ship to land right next to some weird alien structures. What are the chances?
After Gepetto appears to confuse the crew some more, and the Teutonic ice maiden has laid down the law to the scientists (who are sadly far too busy foreshadowing an 'important' plot point to do much about it), our heroes are let loose to investigate the alien ruins. In short order they make a couple of typical "we're really intelligent but we're going to do something dumb" decisions to keep the movie ticking over, then stumble across an ancient stash of thermos flasks.
The scientists find the big head from from Duran Duran's Wild Boys video, take it back to the ship and do some weird stuff to it (they don't hook it up to a karaoke machine though, which is a shame). Not to be left out Pinocchio pockets one of the thermos flasks, possibly in the mistaken belief that it's a cocktail shaker, but more likely to let the audience know that he has his own agenda (crumbs, I wasn't expecting that to happen).
In order to keep some momentum in the plot two of the scientists, the Abbot & Costello comedic relief of the film, end up spending the night in the ruins so you know 'something bad is going to happen'. That these guys are hand-picked to be there, but turn out to be as dumb as a box of rocks (one of them maps the ruins they're in.. and then gets lost finding his way back to the ship) lets you know that they ain't going to be making it to the end credits.
Back on the ship the 'scientist who isn't Tom Hardy' forgets to take his ADHD medication, and duly turns into a bit of an arse (there's probably a reason for this on the cutting room floor). To cheer him up Pinocchio displays some dodgy bar-tending skills, thus underlining his agenda as 'something bad'. The captain, who has a thing for 1970's American singer/songwriters, uses a page out of the Howard Wolowitz book of How To Chat Up Ladies to seduce the Teutonic ice maiden for no other reason that A) he can and B) to prove that the ice maiden isn't really as cold as our android Pinocchio.
It also C) allows the bridge of the multi-million dollar spaceship to be left unmanned so that no-one hears what happens to the comedic relief, still lost in the ruins (and, typically, their systems don't have a back up installed for later listening). The 'scientist who isn't Tom Hardy', still being an arse, hooks up with the 'scientist with the Dragon tattoo' to labour a plot-point to go with the earlier foreshadowing. The next morning the sun rises over Iceland and we're finally all set for "really bad things" to start happening.
In amongst the ruins the thermos flasks have leaked, an occurrence which doesn't help the Pinocchio-induced hangover of the 'scientist who isn't Tom Hardy' (but luckily the Teutonic ice maiden sorts him out with a nice Vindaloo, proving that she might be the only one on the ship with any brains). A short distance away Pinocchio has found God's home movies, his penny whistle and his TomTom GPS; the importance of these finds is emphasized by the stirring 1970's war film music that pops up to underline how important 'this' is (the effect is lessened by the same stirring music being used throughout the film to highlight tension or to underline an actor's emoting, so much so that you wish there was a mute button).
The 'scientist with the Dragon tattoo' gets some good news, closely followed by some bad news, and is drugged into unconsciousness. Time passes, possibly in a cut scene again somewhere on the floor of an editing suite, but when she wakes up she initially believes herself to be Lisbeth Salander again. Then she remembers the important piece of foreshadowing from earlier, at which point the film jumps the shark (or, more specifically, the squid).
Gepetto reappears and Pinocchio's actions are sort of explained. It helps that, despite being a multi-billionaire businessman, Gepetto is also as dumb as a box of rocks. God turns out to be a bit of a douche, chucks his toys out of his pram, and things go just about as bad as you'd expect them to. The accordion-playing ship's captain makes a heroic decision, shortly after which things go bang, with beautiful explosions over Icelandic skies.
The 'scientist with the Dragon tattoo' crawls out from under some wreckage, finds Pinocchio and puts him in a bag for being a naughty boy, then sets off to find God and give him a bit of a talking to.
[fade to black]
[beat]
There now follows a short sequence for all of the fan boys in the audience.
The end.
* The head scientist (who looks like Tom Hardy, but not as hard) appears to be suffering from ADHD throughout, pissing Pinocchio off, but the other head scientist (who may or may not have a Dragon tattoo) loves him anyway.
** A right bunch of losers and chancers.
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