To summarize the various movie reviewsThe Three Highlights
1. Kubrick 2001-like opening, Icelandic national park postcard general scenery. The rolling icebergs, the vast and mixed earth, there is really a feeling of Pan Gu. The Dettifoss waterfall is the most spectacular waterfall in Europe according to many British audiences.
2. the design of the alien ship warehouse, full of dark gothic sense of weapons warehouse design coupled with a Leshan Buddha, the combination of East and West imagination. With the high-tech nano-Holographic technology, David imitated Engineer, playing the planet, futuristic.
3. Fassbinder’s performance: Although David is the most wrinkled robot I have ever seen, but the blond hair and blue pupils do not prevent him from still being a gentleman. Despite his heartlessness, he has an obscure human quality (trying to get free from Weyland, Holloway the mouse, peeking at Shaw’s dreams), as if every man and woman who falls for him will be broken by his heart in the end. Lawrence of Arabia. The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.” will undoubtedly become the most famous line in the history of robotics.
The Three Weaknesses
1. Hollow and off-topic story:
Overly hard to infect the audience (something our great director Chen often does) instead makes the story empty: for example, Shaw’s lines constantly repeat Shakespearean philosophical questions (Faith, Believe, God, Humankind). You know the original Alien series is a simple story of a woman hacking and killing a monster (facehugger), either alive or dead. To be direct excitement, the original fear, into a realistic three-dimensional effects. Now Scott has converted it into a film of exploration when man meets God but not happy. The questions are getting bigger, the themes are getting broader, the characters are getting more and more complex, and the monsters are only glimpsed. (Empire review: he has mostly deviated from the anticipated monster-movie template for a mythical-man-meets-god-it-doesn’t-go-well (exploration movie)
2. the plot falls into clichés:
Excessive use of ethical sensationalism, such as the final two crew members fearlessly choose to live and die with the captain (Ridley Scott also like independent’s day?) A white, a yellow and a black, the choice of world peace. Another example is the two young scientists left in the cave, one is an indiscriminate fool, see will move to kitty-kitty kind, one is a timid manic young man crying to into the dark, the whole a Ian Curtis body. The examples are endless, Shaw’s orphan status, Theron’s sister’s relationship with his father, Shaw’s infertility, simply all kinds of Korean drama essence. The film is too busy, too talky, too noisy by half.
3. poor character design and performance:
The first thing that upset the British people was Noomi Rapace’s use of English with a Swedish accent as a native speaker. Secondly, some felt that her facial expressions were limited and she was basically lost in thought. There were also comments that she didn’t succeed in bringing us into a state of life-threatening terror (Empire’s review), but just kept going on a blind rampage.
I don’t think it’s the actor’s fault. How can you get a pure Swede to speak native English? The point is why did you design her to be British, is it because of Scott’s patriotic feelings? I also think it’s unfair to say that she has a single expression. Because the shots of running east and west are basically medium-distance, face close-ups are not as much as when Sigourney Weaver. Rather, I think she looks too androgynous, both face and body, are lacking a soft sexy. When Sigourney also has a more androgynous face, but the body is not lacking in softness and slenderness. And if you think about Milla Jovovich in the Fifth Element years ago, that really is the embryo of what you want.
And Noomi was born stout (her original girl with the dragon tattoo highlights this), but the director asked her to express a feminine beauty (the first act of moving tears, infertility, love scenes, dreams of father), and sometimes to show the male strength (surgery, escape, the final fight), but it is difficult. I think she and Theron’s roles should be swapped, Theron is able to be both rigid and soft. It’s a pity that Theron played the daughter of a wealthy tycoon in the play, except for the Queen-Bee’s stance and no other play, and finally died inexplicably.
The other characters are designed in the same way as in B-movies: the captain is a black man who loves music, loves peace and loves to roll in bed, and has two obedient and brave soldiers under him. Besides, the tycoon, at first pretended to be dead and refused to socialize, but later was also vaguely exposed, when he died, only a large forehead swollen bag, did not put a fart. In addition to the two young douchebags mentioned earlier, the whole film’s characters are messy B-grade set, cold may as well come out of a silly, cold as flies were eliminated, rather than cut off half of them so that the rest play well. The only highlight of only one: the robot David.