PROMETHEUS (2012)

Now the dust has settled and the weight of expectation dissipated I finally settled down to watch Ridley Scott’s long anticipated PROMETHEUS. A prequel of sorts to the ALIEN franchise its release set the Xenomorph amongst the pigeons for being not very good. Many people were expecting another horror film in space and what they got was an unexpected mediation on the nature of man. Though I have always thought anything is better as long as it is...IN SPACE.

A team of scientists and support crew answer an ancient riddle and find themselves far across space on an isolated planet. When they arrive they find the answer may not have been what they were looking for.

PROMETHEUS is an incredibly frustrating film. All the elements are there for a classic but somewhere along the line it all goes horribly wrong (which is very much the film’s plot but I doubt it was meant to be a meta mediation on the nature of film making).  What is right with this film is the art side. Ridley Scott’s direction and editing is superb as ever. The art design is breathlessly good. There is a lovely sense of retro with the suit designs but combined with modern sensibilities. One of my major issues with science-fiction is the habit of doing pointlessly futuristic versions of things which have not changed in millennium. “This isn't chess this is chess...IN SPACE” and so on. Prometheus keeps it pleasingly simple. Coffee cups look like coffee cups and t-shirts look like they are from Primark. It suffers from the same problem as the STAR WARS prequels did. The film, set chronologically first in the film continuity, have more advanced looking tech than those set afterwards. PROMETHEUS gets away with it by having this as a state-of-the-art expedition whereas the tech in ALIEN was on a run-down space barge and I doubt such matters were a concern for the casual viewer.

What is a cause of concern for the casual viewer is the script of PROMETHEUS is a confused mess.  In theory it should be fine as it is nominally by Damon Lindelhof, Hollywood’s go to man for consistently good sci-fi.  Having read his superior initial draft of the script I wonder if either corporate meddling or Ridley Scott asked for changes which sent the whole work into a blind alley. The initial draft was closer to ALIEN and this film is basically Erich Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods? It is all Ancient Astronauts and secrets from the dawn of man rather than phallic Aliens stalking people around corridors.  In losing the horror aspect it rather loses any point in being linked to the ALIEN franchise.  There are plot holes a plenty, characters act illogically and everybody seems terrible at their jobs. There are archaeologists ripping open tombs with a gay abandon and biologists contaminating samples left and right. Though I concede if they did their jobs properly it would somewhat take from the drama. They could have switched the film’s genres as I would have paid to see Time Team...IN SPACE.

"I'm Dr. Elizabeth Shaw"

PROMETHEUS has one very odd thing about it. I think, on a fundamental level, the reason this film does not work is Ridley Scott has made a DOCTOR WHO adventure and forgotten to put the Doctor in. It is reminiscent of Colony In Space or the Mutants with its themes of industrial arrogance and colonialism. All of the film’s problems would have been solved by Jon Pertwee striding around the place pointing out the obvious. Are your archaeologists being useless? Let the Doctor tell them that and show them what they should be doing.  If your film ends because somebody does something stupid let the Doctor doing something terribly clever and point out the folly of your plan. One of the characters even shares a name with one of Pertwee’s companions: Dr. Elizabeth Shaw.  

"No I'm Dr. Elizabeth Shaw"

PROMETHEUS could have been wonderful instead it is simply, all right. It entertains but it falls apart too much to ever be good. It is a shame they did not realise and embrace their DOCTOR WHO roots as nothing would have been better than if they had landed on the isolated planet to find, waiting in the dark, Daleks.

RED RIDING HOOD (2011)

The success of the Twilight film has been a bit of mixed blessing. It has seen a revival in teen horror but it has caused a spate of mashing horror films with teenage romance and coming of age plots. It is not necessarily a bad thing but when I want horror film I would far rather it concentrate on horrible things crawling in the corner of your mind rather than teens lustful gazing.

RED RIDING HOOD is a post Twilight take on Little Red Riding Hood. A medieval village of undetermined geography is terrorised by a werewolf.  A young girl in a red cloak falls in love with a woodsman and a religious zealot comes to town to save it from the wolf’s curse.

I cannot decide if I like this film or not (a perfect way to start a review). Every time I think about it there are bits I like and then I think about other parts of the film and weep for the time I will never get back.

The biggest problem with RED RIDING HOOD is it is bloody tedious. Lots of soft focus shots of teens biting their quivering lips at one another and a monster that does very little in the way of being monstrous. The teen romance is there in abundance. Hormones spilling out the frame and with lots of shots of lithe naked young men making the girls in the audience swoon. If your audience are passing out in a horror film because they are swooning rather than being overwhelmed by bottomless terror, you have failed. The film seems to go on and on never get anywhere which is amazing as it is just over 90 minutes long (The length that all horror films should be; what’s that? You think you have a great 2 hour horror film script? That’s wonderful but you’re wrong.)

The film is saved by a wonderfully eclectic cast with GaryOldman, Virginia Madsen and the only Canadian actor with an obviously Canadian accent himself, Michael Hogan.  Gary Oldman is especially good as a religious fanatic with a vendetta against werewolves and a giant metal elephant as part of his retinue.  It is the older cast members who save this film as the younger actors stink up the screen with soap-opera histrionics and a stark inability to convince.

"Heave Bosom, Heave"

However, despite these problems there was something rather nostalgic about this film. It was all shot on a studio village set and only left it to go onto another set which is very rare for modern films.  I liked this because it evoked Hammer Horror at its height like Plague of Zombies or The Reptile. A lone isolated village beset by a horror from within. It is a shame the werewolf is rubbish. A CGI spill over from a SyFy channel Friday night film it looks as threatening as a damp corgi. There are some nice variations on the werewolf mythology with it unable to pass onto hallowed ground but it is mostly a failure.  

The real monster is Gary Oldman’s fanatic. Oldman delivers a camp, grandiose performance which manages to both chew the scenery and be terrifying simultaneously.  Followed by an odd assembly of African soldiers he is brilliant flash of the different. The aforementioned metal elephant is a variation on the Brazen Bull torture device and I have no idea how it ended up in this film. It entrance is trumpeted but then it does not figure in the plot again. A Chekov’s Elephant Gun if you will (I Thank You).

The incongruity of Oldman and his background being better thought through than the rest of the plot makes me wonder if he was a holdover from an earlier, very different draft of the script. If it was originally written more as a straight out horror and the producers decided to make it appeal to the Twilight crowd? 

RED RIDING HOOD is an infuriating failure. You wonder if it could have been something better but commerce took it over. I do not think I can recommend this film but should a friend ever make you watch it I insist you cry “Why Grandma what rubbish taste in DVDs you have”

"What am I doing in this film?