Prometheus

Before seeing this film, you should forget or ignore that it might have anything to do with Alien. I spent most of the time waiting for clues or hints as to the origin of that film's storyline, and really would’ve been better off without this distraction. Aside from perhaps the last thirty seconds, this movie stands on its own. It is an entirely new plot only tangentially connected with the Alien franchise. However, this does not mean there aren’t parallels. The structure of the film essentially imitates that of Alien, and this could be said to be its main weakness: a ship lands on a hostile planet, something bad happens, an android works at cross purposes to the crew. What Prometheus could have learnt from Alien, however, was the context in which it was set. Alien succeeds because it portrays an insignificant crew of an insignificant ship discovering a creature that wants to kill them. In Prometheus, the crew are trying to discover the meaning of our existence. There is a portentousness there, a sense of its own self-importance, which is hard to shake off. The film raises questions about life and death, but only from a certain perspective. It’s very slow in giving us any information to work with, and refuses at all to give us certain facts. The beginning, for example, is never explained. It is only with careful thought, and several leaps of logic, that one comes to realise it could be an explanation for the creation of life on earth. The film is vast and impressive, and Noomi Rapace is brilliant, but there is something perfunctory about its procedure. Nothing really excites or thrills. I would argue that this is because nothing is explained. We need some bits of information, and receive virtually none. There are too many ‘why did that happen?’ or ‘why was that there?’ questions that arise after the film. Yes, the film deliberately raises some questions which are meant to be unanswered, and this is intriguing, but there are many more which I believe should be answered. There are some other, obvious complaints too: the technology that’s more advanced than that in Alien (this was asked of the Star Wars prequels also); the underdevelopment of Charlize Theron’s character (the advertisement of her as the main character doesn’t help); the ease of finding the valley which the aliens used; and the very clichéd character of the captain. The film sticks to a reasonable two hour length, but it could easily have gone on for three hours – there’s so much material here, and perhaps this is the problem. The creators suffered from having too many ideas which when edited down leaves the audience asking too many questions. Whether this is true or not, what we ultimately have to ask ourselves is whether we’d watch it again. The answer for me is not a definitive yes, but it is a yes.

The Artist

A question I thought watching this movie might answer, has still not been answered: why is the film silent? The story is about a silent cinema actor, but that doesn’t logically mean the film itself has to be in black and white, and silent. Perhaps the intent was to put us into the world in which they existed and thought, but - eighty years later - this can only be done with an obvious, artificial pretence. You have to buy into the concept, without question, or this film won’t work for you. Jean Dujardin is brilliant, but you could call him one dimensional, and he essentially repeats his performance from OSS 117. He’s a modern silent cinema actor himself, and as such we don’t believe the more serious concerns that afflict him later on. When we focus on the story itself, we find little that really surprises or excites us – much of it has been done before: think of Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, and of course Sunset Boulevard (or even Citizen Kane to a certain extent). The novelty is in the silence (and perhaps the cute dog), but it would be unfair to say that without it the film would be nothing special. There is a great charm to this movie – something quite direct and unpretentious. The dream sequence is frightening (I initially thought it wasn’t a dream, and the movie would continue along those lines), but it brings me to my final point of irritation with the film: the ending. There can’t have been many people who were surprised or shocked at what happens, but why does it happen? Like the dream, it breaks the fourth wall (the rules we have tacitly accepted for the length of the film), and for no real reason. As I said, you have to buy into the concept of this film wholeheartedly for it to work for you. I was unable to do this.

John Carter

His name does not inspire greatness, like Indiana Jones or Sherlock Holmes do, and this lack of inspiration is something that seeps throughout the film. It is entertaining, but it’s John Carter not Luke Skywalker. Perhaps the original title: John Carter of Mars, might have been more appealing, but apparently Disney were scared of using the word ‘Mars’, a word that has always signalled box office failure in the past. That change of title, however, didn’t save the film. The movie is noted for being one of the biggest flops in cinema history, which I think is a little unfair. The more money you spend the more you have to lose, so the economics of these statistics don’t quite square up. Moreover, the film isn’t that bad, or at least not any worse than a lot of other blockbusters that have had a lot more success than it (the Transformers, Matrix, Spider-man, and X-Men sequels, for instance). John Carter, a former captain in the Confederate army during the American Civil War, is accidentally transported to Mars. If this sounds rather arbitrary and pointless, that’s because it is. There is never a reason or a purpose (unlike Luke Skywalker he does not discover that he possesses the force and is the only chance of saving the universe). Due to the lower gravitational pull on Mars, Carter is exceptionally strong and powerful on that planet, but aside from this there is nothing special about him. We do not feel any great attachment to the character, or in fact to any of the others, except perhaps a weird, dog-like creature that follows him around. Carter reluctantly gets involved in another civil war, and surprisingly takes the side which has the prettiest girl on it (a girl who is supposed to be a professor, or at least an advanced engineer, geographer, astronomer, and linguist). We then follow him through several twists and turns of fate, and I have to admit a fairly complex plot-line. The feeling of arbitrariness never leaves us, however, and this is confirmed by Carter’s enemies whose ultimate aim, it seems, is just to be evil. We have to blame the writing here, both of the original book and the screenplay. The effects, the design etc, are fantastic, but there is nothing new or inspiring in this movie. The beginning is an unnecessary mess which involves jumping between five different periods and places, before we have been able to fully understand any of them. Taylor Kitsch, who plays Carter, is fairly insipid – there are no great lines, no great looks or movements. You may enjoy the ride, as vacuous as it is, but you’ll soon find yourself thirsting after something a little more satisfying.