Prometheus (2012)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba

Have I Seen It Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: Is it possible to give a film partial credit? The last entry in the Alien franchise*, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection (1997) benefited from an (just ever so slightly) above average script, but was weighed down by visual effects that removed any of the threat from the xenomorphs. This is working with the other formula and hoping for some degree of better success. The visuals are often stunning. The interiors of the ship Prometheus pull elements from the design of the Nostromo in Alien (1979) but extend it into a new environment that is always interesting to look at. I almost don’t mind that I can’t even kind of believe that the tech on display in this film looks wildly more advanced than the tech on the Nostromo, despite that first film taking place thirty years later.

Then there’s the story. One of the great “what the hell is that?” moments of Alien is the landing party coming across the Space Jockey. Alien doesn’t feel the need to tell us everything about how that poor unfortunate soul got something to leap out of them. It is content instead to let us wonder about how deeply weird this universe might be the deeper into the cosmos you drift. Jumping off with the idea of how that guy got into that seat is a shaky one to begin with. Jamming all of the wonder of that moment into its own two hour movie is pretty much guaranteed to dampen that wonder when one goes back to watch Alien again. But the film isn’t even really about that. It’s about those people, but LV-426 is kept as far away as possible. Even those squirrelly xenomorphs are only injected—sort of—as an afterthought that reeks of a studio note. How does one classify a bad idea that’s ultimately also a half-measure? “Uneven” is probably the nicest one for which I can immediately reach.

*I’m not looking in your direction any vs. Predator films, not because I’m looking down at you, but more because I can make the following point more smoothly without you getting in the way.

Napoleon (2023)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Rupert Everett

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. It took a devil of an effort to sneak away for a few hours to see it.

Did I Like It: I really wish I did. There’s plenty to like. Phoenix once again fully commits to the role at hand, so much so that if we got anything less from him, we would be gravely disappointed. The scope and scale of the movie is pristine, but then again anything less and we would be gravely disappointed in Ridley Scott. Although, to be fair, I don’t think we’re likely to see another film with special effects so pointedly wielded toward the end of showing the most vivid horse murders that American Humane is likely to allow.

One flaw persisted throughout the film, although it might be a little unfair to judge the film by a flaw to which so many films of the genre also fall. All of the characters speak English, even though they clearly spoke French in reality*. That’s a phenomenon I can usually get used to. I had no problem with it in movies like The Mask of Zorro (1998). But here I’m taken out of the proceedings every moment we linger on a document like an annulment or abdication and even it is written in English. It’s bad when Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) offers a more accurate depiction of the little frenchman, right?

This all, too, could be forgiven if there was a narrative on display here. It doesn’t have the depth off a real biography. Nor should it. That’s not the job of a movie. But it also shouldn’t be a rough outline of what a biography might be. It hits all the moments one might expect from a depiction of his life, but at no point do I get the sense that Napoleon is the protagonist of any kind of story. When he (spoiler) dies at Saint Helena, it doesn’t even qualify as an anti-climax because there was no series of events that begs for a climax of any kind.

*That alone will pretty much account for the nearly unanimous loathing from French critics.

Hannibal (2001)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Ray Liotta, Frankie R. Faison

Have I Seen it Before: Sure. I wasn’t yet 17 when the film was release, but perpetually looking about five years older than I really am, I was able to buy a ticket for myself without much scrutiny at all.

And yet, I couldn’t even begin to guess when I last saw the film. For someone who’s taken to a <Hannibal Lecter podcast> in recent months, it’s odd just how little this film has lived in my memory all these years.

Did I Like It: For the first half of the film, I was struck by how faithful an adaptation this was of the original Thomas Harris novel. I’m not certain if that’s the most thorough praise, as Harris’ third Lecter novel isn’t quite his weakest entry, but it’s far, far from his strongest.

For what it is, things could be a lot worse. Is it a satisfying successor to The Silence of the Lambs (1991)? Certainly not, but then again, neither was the novel, so Scott and company are  at least hitting their target here. Performances are all around pretty good. Moore accomplishes the unenviable task of equating herself well, while having to be either the George Lazenby or Roger Moore to Jodie Foster’s Sean Connery. An uncredited Gary Oldman disappears into his part as the non-charming monster of the piece, but one can’t help but wonder if original choice Christopher Reeve might have made the proceedings even more unsettling than they already were. Hopkins himself—the main attraction—doesn’t feel like he is trying to eliminate the need for him to reprise the role again (Red Dragon (2002), I’m looking in your direction) and keeps the hammier parts of Lecter, but just barely.

The final act of the film, however is where a bad taste is left in my mouth. It is a thorough exercise in the practice of half measures. Starling and Lecter couldn’t become lovers, sure, although with the departure of Moore, maybe they could. The eventual comeuppance of Mason Verger is a great deal more satisfying in the novel, and trying to make Starling anything other than a tragic hero in this story is a flex that the preceding two hours can’t quite support. We’ll just have to take comfort in the knowledge that we did get to see Ray Liotta eat his own brain for a little bit.

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen

Have I Ever Seen It Before: Never, which seems like preposterous blind spot, I know.

Did I like it: Is there any director other than Ridley Scott who has such a tonnage of absolute classics under his belt (and a few stinkers; let’s not completely lose our heads), and have those classics reside in such complete different genres? Spielberg may be as prolific, but he generally has his Amblin period, and his Oscar-bait period, and nearly every one of his films can fit into those large categories. Kubrick is certainly varied, but between a more high brow sensibility and a compulsive need to do scores of takes, there are only a handful of films in the canon. It’s Ridley Scott and only Ridley Scott for this particular category.

And so it is with this film, that an unlikely source creates an unabashedly feminist film. If the film came to the surface now, it would be beset by complaints over over-wokeness, and the only comfort I get from that realization is that it was also beset by those bad faith arguments, so maybe all lousy criticism (including, sometimes, the ones that appear on this site) will eventually evaporate into the ether, and the really good stuff will remain. Every man in this movie lands on some end of the terrible spectrum, and if that bothers you, well, 1991 called and wants its bullshit back.

And that’s what this is, the writing is top notch, often funny, and never boring. Sarandon and Davis are never better, bringing the simmering strength and still ingrained weakness in equal measure. There’s an absolute reason it is a classic.

Which brings us to the ending. No conversation about this movie would be complete without touching upon the final moments, as those are the ones that have become the most iconic over the years. It may be my least favorite thing about the film. The action of driving the car off the cliff feels tacked on somehow. The action of going out in a blaze of glory is fine, and absolutely flows from the film that precedes it. Perhaps the production ran out of money to have they turn around and make the various cops pay for their chase. Maybe I’m just bothered by how the polaroid of them from the beginning managed to stay just so on the backseat through that whole action sequence, only to fly off at the moment of maximum pathos. Maybe I don’t like the fact that my idiot brain thinks for a moment they might have made it.

It’s a minor complaint.

Alien (1979)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton, Yaphet Kotto, and Bolaji Badejo as himself.

Have I Seen it Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: As Brett says, “Right…” 

This is another movie that proves difficult to try and write about critically with any sort of honesty. It’s a great film. You know it’s a great film* because they’ve been trying to remake it about a thousand times in the forty years since it was unleashed. And after you see a great film several times, it’s harder still—if not downright impossible—to unpack the experience. One is more struck by the little things that one may not think about on first blush.

The performances are pitch perfect and so against what would be the obvious direction a film like this could have taken. Ash (Holm) particularly stands out on second watch. He slithers through the movie, fighting down his glee (or as much glee as a robot could muster) that things are about to go down. 

The others are no slouches, either. They don’t particularly like each other—or at the very least, have gotten sick of one another after this much time beyond the frontier—and it shows. They don’t even like being in space, which is unique in both this series, and in science fiction as a whole. 

All of this comes about as subtext as well. Never once does one character turn to another and say, “I don’t like you, and I don’t like having to work in outer space.” This, along with the occasionally insane design gives the entire world a lived-in feel that Star Wars or Trek series often reaches for and comes up wanting.

Another element that never fails to delight—although it is likely less of an intentional choice and more of a reality of the time in which it was made—is the technology that surrounds the characters. Between clicking and clacking, displaying nonsense numbers as comprehensible data, and literally everything about the Mother computer make me long for a time when every piece of tech in a film didn’t look like it was designed by Tony Stark. Eagle-eyed readers of these reviews might detect a hypocrisy in that thought, as I have often extolled the virtue of films resisting looking like they were filmed at the time in which they were, but if films still used computers like this, it’d be impossible to tell when any film is made without consulting IMDB or Wikipedia, and that would make me a very happy camper, indeed.

If a film doesn’t have these little things, maybe it is not all that great in the first place. We are lucky that this one has them in spades. They make them worth coming back to every once in a while.

*While it is a great film, it is a competitive candidate for best trailer of all time. You have to kind of imagine yourself as a person who has no idea what the film is about when watching it, but from that perspective its one of the greats.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride

Have I Seen it Before: Once in the theater, and once on blu ray.

Did I Like It: I’m pretty effusive about the film in the earlier review above, but considering I’ve only glanced at it a couple of times, maybe it had less of an impact than I originally thought.

The text of this review appeared previously in a blog post entitled “But My, Oh My, How Delicious The Cheeseburgers Will Be: The Future Of Cinema?” published on 05/28/2017.

Saw Alien: Covenant this week. The movie flew under my radar for the longest time, despite my love for the first two films of the series, and my not-quite-hate for Ridley Scott’s previous re-entry into the Alien universe, Prometheus (2012). But, when the opportunity comes to take off work a little early and catch a matinee, I am helpless against the prospect’s siren song*.

So, much to my surprise, the movie is actually good. It’s not an earth shattering revelation of a movie—for such an experience this year, you’re probably going to have to begin and end with Jordan Peele’s debut masterwork, Get Out—but it certainly irons out some of the more forgettable moments that muddied reactions to Prometheus, extending the philosophical rumination on the origins of man in a bleak universe to its natural, psychotic conclusion. It manages to be the kind of head trip that Prometheus so desperately wanted to be, without unravelling into a pointedly turgid lecture more at home in a freshman philosophy course.

And yet, there’s a lot that’s even more familiar about the movie. An egg opens up. The egg spits out a creature that is equal parts spider and Georgie O’Keefe painting. A little guy bursts out of one of the human guys. The little guy grows bigger, uses it secondary head to eat a few other guys. Acid is spilled, airlocks are blown, and everyone goes back to cryosleep, perhaps never to wake up again. It’s the same old story, a fight for love and biological weaponry.

Yes, I’ve seen this movie before. I’ve also eaten plenty of cheeseburgers before**, but it is rare that you eat a cheeseburger that is exceptionally well made, just as it is equally rare that a fairly basic monster movie is made as well as Scott and his crew made Covenant.

And that’s when a borderline-depressing thought occurred to me: the franchise movie is dangerously close to becoming a legitimate form of artistic expression. Sure, this summer we’ll be waylaid by inevitable crap like The Emoji Movie and Michael Bay’s latest attempt to make a Transformers film that isn’t technically a violation of the Geneva convention. But Ridley Scott—a legitimate and respectable filmmaker—has made his plans known to spend a sizable chunk of his twilight years trying to make more Alien movies, an effort many of us can agree he near-perfected in his first attempt nearly forty years ago. Kenneth Branagh went in a few short years from forging full-text productions of the Bard to making Chris Hemsworth a household name in Thor (2011). Sam Mendes made Oscar-bait like American Beauty (1999)***, then made 1 1/2 great Bond movies. Christopher Nolan moved from indie darlings to Batmen, and continues his quest to put the genie back in the bottle with the upcoming Dunkirk. Hell, movie news sites were abuzz just a few months ago with talk that Aaron Sorkin took meetings with Marvel Studios for some unknown project.****

I suppose this all means that original big-budget movies are going to be harder to harder to find. For every Pacific Rim (2013) there’s going to be a Pirates of the Caribbean: One More and Johnny Can Get The Rest of His Wigs Out Of Australia. That’s pretty measurably bad, mainly because I was holding out for 2Dark 2Shadows: Basically Just Mortdecai With Different Opening Titles.

But, it could also mean that the big tentpole movies will be better, on average. That has to be good, right? I mean, an Aaron Sorkin-penned Iron Man 3 would be… Well, it’d have a lot more references to Gilbert and Sullivan than the rest of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that has to count for something, right?

*See my ill-advised venture to watch this years undeniably weird, yet nearly shot-for-shot remake of The Breakfast Club (1985), entitled Saban’s Power Rangers.

**Probably too many; I get it.

***We could go on an on about whether or not American Beauty is a good movie. It’d make a half decent blog, if it weren’t for the fact that my answer would be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. (Note from 2019: There’s no way American Beauty is any degree of watchable anymore. I’m reasonably sure about that.)

****Yes, every individual named in that paragraph is a man. That’s another issue entirely, and one that Hollywood is working fairly slowly to fix.

Blade Runner (1982)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah…

Did I Like It: …I was really hoping you weren’t going to ask me that.

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is just one of those movies… People love it, and they’re not wrong. To have the special effects for any movie still work past six months the initial release of the film in question is something of a small miracle*. The cast is pretty great, and this is prime pre-sleepwalking Harrison Ford. I can see the fusion between postmodern sci-fi and film noir is very particularly designed.

And yet, it’s never all come together in my eyes. It might be that it’s too slow for me—or for that matter, modern audiences—but I’ve enjoyed slower films before. It could also be that the film may still come from that heralded era where films were truly meant to be enjoyed on the big screen, and the home video market was a faded afterthought. Ultimately, though, I think that—even though the special effects are obviously well-crafted—the film’s aesthetic can’t quite reach for any degree of timelessness, and every frame and every sound within the movie screams “THIS MOVIE WAS MADE IN THE 1980s.” Even Ridley Scott’s other great science fiction film of the era—Alien (1979)— can more often than not avoid any sort of fashionable quality and maybe look for a few seconds as if it might have been made any year.

Maybe things will change on this new screening of the film…

And—upon further review—I’m just not that into it, and beyond the reasons I noted above, I’m having a hard time quantifying my apathy. Maybe it’s the music? Maybe it’s the pacing. Maybe all of those elements fuse together and introduce in me some pervasive feeling of unease. I don’t necessarily dislike a movie that wants me to feel ill-at-ease, but I would like to be able to point to something particular that’s making me feel that way. This film just doesn’t do it.

*What’s more, I just can’t buy George Lucas’ argument that he couldn’t have made the prequels until CGI technology reached the “Jurassic Park” phase. All of his Coruscant scenes have been pretty much worked out on Scott’s canvas.