Thematically “Prometheus” is about creation and destruction. As a piece of entertainment goes, however, I’m not sure Ridley Scott’s new space opera will create lasting memories. It won’t destroy the goodwill of the first couple of “Alien” films, but I don’t think it will add much to the legacy either. For me there is very little big bang in a movie that is reportedly about the most significant discovery in the history of mankind.
The basic storyline of “Alien” is in place in “Prometheus,” just don’t this movie a sequel or a prequel lest you annoy Sir. Ridley. A group of hapless space travellers go head to head with some intergalactic nasties who give hugging a bad name. But these face huggers aren’t the movie’s main draw. Led by Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green, the expedition into the farthest corners of the universe aims to prove a connection between ancient human civilizations and extraterrestrials. They discover a link to creation and religion that is more Book of Revelation than Genesis, however.
“Prometheus” doesn’t degrade the legacy of Scott or his beloved “Alien” but it doesn’t add much to the franchise either. It’s an expertly made, but clinical study of dread and wonder which, despite the two-and-a-half-year spaceship journey, never takes flight.
It’s a slow build. Scott allows the intensity to build throughout the two hour running time, leading up to a climax that is best described in
(mild spoiler) four words: Do it yourself caesarean! It’s a memorable scene, well orchestrated by Scott, but the movie peaks there, despite the half-hour that follows.
It’s a mix of heady ideas—which are revealed in the film’s first half—the odd action sequence and dialogue that sounds left over from a bad late seventies sci film. I expected a higher level of writing from a movie that is more about ideas than action.
Having said that, I loved Michael Fassbender’s automaton space butler David 8. He’s got many of the film’s best lines and if they ever need someone to play the lead in The Peter O’Toole Story, he’s the guy.
I know it is wrong to compare movies in the same way it’s a bad idea to compare your kids to one another, but Scott has made a movie that feels like something he’s done before, just not as well. I expected more. Perhaps “Alien” set the bar too high for the director to leap over.
In a twelfth century twist on a modern saying, the only two things you can count on in “Robin Hood,” the handsome new retelling of the age old tale from director Ridley Scott, are taxes and treachery.
Set in the waning days of Richard the Lion Heart’s (Danny Huston) ten year long Crusade, the origin story of how Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) became Robin Hood, really picks up when Robin promises one of the king’s knights, Sir Robert Loxley (Douglas Hodge), that he will deliver a sword to Robert’s father, Sir Walter Loxley (Max Von Sydow), in Nottingham. Meanwhile, Richard’s ridiculous brother Prince John (Oscar Isaac) ignores his trusted advisors, his chancellor William Marshall (William Hurt) and his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine (Eileen Atkins) and imposes crippling taxes on his subjects. Egging him on is the duplicitous Godfrey (Mark Strong), a traitor who is secretly trying to start a civil war and help France invade the country. Back in Nottingham, Robin delivers the sword, meets Lady Marion (Cate Blanchett), helps save England from the French and for his trouble is declared an outlaw by King John.
The new “Robin Hood” isn’t the bright Technicolor tale of the famous Errol Flynn version. Scott’s vision of the story is dark, thematically and visually. It’s a raw boned and bloody story of greed, unfettered ambition and treachery with a complex plot that touches on some very modern issues like taxes, too much government and one that might make the people of Arizona happy—unwanted immigration. It’s a mostly historically correct representation of the time and the Robin Hood legend, but Scott has added in an unbelievable plot twist involving Robin’s father and a coincidence that stretches credulity to the breaking point. It seems so out-of-place and glaringly silly I’m sure the writers of the campy cartoon series “Rocket Robin Hood” would have rejected the idea as being too outlandish.
Despite that lapse in judgment, the movie works. Fans of “Gladiator” will feel a sense of déjà vu—the only thing separating the two movies is the time period and Richard Harris and Oliver Reed, and they’re both dead. Scott and Crowe have returned to the winning formula of historical drama mixed with strong characters and lots of crazy action.
At the center of it all is Crowe, possibly the only Hollywood a-lister he-man enough to pull off “Robin Hood’s” combo of raging machismo, honor and emotional intensity. Physically he doesn’t look like he spends much time at the gym, instead it seems like he earned those muscles the old fashioned way—by swinging a sword. Equally strong is Blanchett in a role that could be redubbed, Maid Marion, Warrior Princess. She defines twelfth century girl power and, as one of only three female characters, cuts through the thick cloud of testosterone that hangs over the movie like a cloud. The supporting cast, including Mark Strong—in what is now becoming his trademark bad guy routine—Max Von Sydow, William Hurt, Danny Huston and Canadian Kevin Durand as the ironically named Little John, add much to the overall effect.
“Robin Hood” is a new take on an old story; it’s entertaining, occasionally funny and as epic a film as we’re likely to see this summer.
Michael Fassbender plays David 8, a synthetic human automaton ancestor of Alien’s Ash, in the upcoming film Prometheus.
Prometheus, a prequel, or not a prequel? That is the question.
It’s a query many have made about the new Ridley Scott space opera. The trailer looks and feels like a chronological cousin to his 1979 classic sci-fi horror epic Alien but the director denies it is a prequel.
Here’s what we know. When Scott sat down to write Prometheus (with screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, who calls it “an Alien/Blade Runner mash-up”) he had a prequel in mind featuring Xenomorphs, the acid-tongued space baddies who gave the first movie its name, and the giant dead alien nicknamed Space Jockey. But then he veered off into something larger; mankind’s origin story.
“Out of the creative process emerged a new, grand mythology,” he said. “The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien’s DNA … but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, far-reaching and provocative.”
Still, Prometheus, which is set in the same universe as Alien, seems to provide the backstory which points forward to the original film.
Firstly, Prometheus is set in 2085, 37 years before the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (which also appears in Prometheus, simply as The Weyland Corporation) sent the commercial towing spaceship Nostromo on its fateful trip from Thedus to Earth in Alien.
Next, while the Xenomorphs may not appear in the acid-spitting form we’re used to — “The sequels squeezed him dry,” Scott says, “no way am I going back there” — they aren’t completely absent. Artist H.R. Giger, who created the beasts in the first film, was brought back to “reverse-engineer the design of the Aliens in the film” to create a Xenomorph forbearer.
Also, Michael Fassbender plays David 8, a synthetic human automaton ancestor of Alien’s Ash.
Further evidence came in a trailer that shows star Noomi Rapace standing in front of two unworn Space Jockey suits, suits which will soon be donned, perhaps, by the hapless space jockey seen in Alien.
Finally Scott promises a scene to equal the horror of Alien’s “chest-burster” mindblower, in which an alien parasite exploded out of John Hurt’s torso. It’s an iconic moment that no prequel could be without, right?
“There is a scene that could be called the equivalent of that in this film,” Scott admits.
Even though the prequel debate rages on, the one thing nobody is questioning is how exciting it is to have Ridley Scott back in the sci-fi genre after a 33-year gap.
When looking back at great director – actor relationships it’s safe to comment that most often directors typecast their favorite stars time and time again. For example in the twenty or so films John Ford and John Wayne collaborated on the actor was never required to stray too far from his heroic cowboy persona. Martin Scorese and Robert De Niro have shaken things up a bit more in their eight movies together, but their most successful outings have usually involved wise guys and crime. The same can’t be said of Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe. Since their first teaming, the sword and sandal epic Gladiator, the pair have made three more films, a romantic comedy called A Good Year, American Gangster, a true life crime drama, and their latest, a contemporary spy thriller titled Body of Lies. It’s a diverse body of work that defies the usual typecasting of actors by directors.
Crowe plays Ed Hoffman, a manipulative CIA puppet master, who sends his top field operative Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) to Jordan to locate a high-ranking terrorist named Al-Saleem. On the ground in the Middle East Ferris is helped in his mission by Hani Salaam (Mark Strong) the head of Jordan’s secret service leading to a cultural, moral and operational battle between the three powerful men.
Based on Washington Post columnist David Ignatius’s 2007 novel Body of Lies the film is an echo of the great political intrigue movies of the Nixon-era like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor. It is essentially a convoluted Cold War story of dishonesty, game playing and loyalty filtered through a post 9/11 global reality. Its plot and deceit machinations are as twisted as a winding mountain road, so step out for a quick trip to the bathroom or to reload on popcorn at your own risk. You could have trouble catching up when you come back. Those willing to follow along, however, will find much here to like.
Key to the film’s success is the performance of Leonardo DiCaprio, the former child star who in recent years has gone from strength to strength. His work here and in movies like Catch Me If You Can and The Aviator is almost enough to make me forgive him for his brief, but indelibly stamped time as Hollywood’s ubiquitous teen matinee idol. As Roger Ferris he convincingly speaks Arabic and has the grit to make the character believable.
Crowe also fares well, although his role is less showy. As the CIA mastermind he is stationed in the US and as such, his role is mostly comprised of barking orders into a cell phone. It’s a challenging part to pull off convincingly and keep entertaining, but Crowe adds some unexpected humor into the generally grim proceedings. In the two or three brief scenes the two actors share they display great chemistry, suggesting that they would make a great pairing in film that gives them more of a chance to play off one another.
Body of Lies features director Scott’s trademarked high visual style, has edge-of-your-seat action scenes and a smarter-than-usual take on the culture of disinformation and ever-shifting alliances that characterizes Middle Eastern covert operations. More interesting than that—and perhaps more surprising, given that it is an American film about the Middle East—it avoids making moral judgments or taking sides, preferring to allow the audience to come to their own conclusions.
On paper American Gangster sounds like a home run. It stars two charismatic Oscar winners, re-teams Russell Crowe with his Gladiator director Ridley Scott and is written by the Oscar winning screenwriter behind Schindler’s List. That‘s all good right? Well, not exactly. Based on a true story—just like recent big winners Walk the Line, Ray and Capote—it is the kind of late-year release that seems almost guaranteed to garner Academy attention, but in reality American Gangster is less than the sum of its parts.
Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, the one-time driver for a Harlem mob boss who rises to the top of the drug world by flooding the streets of Manhattan with cheap, high grade heroin smuggled into the United States in the coffins of dead soldiers returning from Vietnam. He’s a dichotomy, bloodthirsty and ruthless, he also attends church every Sunday with his Mother.
On the other side of the street is Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), a cop whose honesty makes him an outcast in his corrupt precinct. When his former partner dies from a drug overdose Roberts relentlessly devotes himself to ridding the streets of Lucas’s heroin.
Inevitably their paths cross as their worlds become intertwined.
Scott takes his time with the story, laying it out over the course of 157 minutes. Length is not necessarily a bad thing as Roger Ebert once pointed out—“No good movie is too long,”—and many other crime dramas have epic running times—The Godfather is 175 minutes long, Goodfellas just slightly shorter at 145 minutes—and remained compelling right through to the end credits, but American Gangster feels like it is 157 minutes.
The difference between Scott’s movie and The Godfather or Goodfellas is that they were masterfully paced, blending the crime elements of the plot with carefully tailored stories of family life and the importance of loyalty. American Gangster tries for the same richness of story, but succeeds only in presenting a rambling first hour, cluttered with subplots and meaningless, although beautifully shot, scenes that add little to the overall story.
For instance, a fair amount of time is spent on Roberts’s troubled personal life and a drawn out custody battle. It struck me that the whole family drama aspect of Roberts’s life belonged in another movie. Excising that story thread from American Gangster could easily save half-an-hour and some wear and tear on our already strained backsides and bladders.
Sir Ridley puts some lipstick on this pig, tarting it up with great cinematography, nice attention to the 1970s period detail and well cast, although underused actors like Cuba Gooding Jr and Chiwetel Ejiofor, in supporting roles. For all its angels, however, American Gangster is simply too ambitious for its own good and is in need of a talented editor to bring out the important aspects of the story and snip the rest.
