FRANK Is a Quirky Rock n' Roll Trip

FRANK Review:

- In a short span of time, Michael Fassbender has become one of those actors who I want to see cast in everything. Whenever I hear of a new film in production looking for an epic hero or a sinister villain, Fassbender is always one of the first names that comes to mind. He's one of those actors who can bring that extra something to a part - who can elevate it with charisma, presence, psychological complexity, and gravitas. With that said, I would probably not have thought of Michael Fassbender to play the titular role in FRANK - a quirky comedy about an eccentric, would-be rock star who hides his face at all times behind a giant cartoon-head helmet. But Fassbender, playing against type, kills it as Frank. It's a unique performance. We can't see the actor's face, so the acting is all in his voice and body language. What Fassbender does, given those limitations, is pretty remarkable. And what FRANK accomplishes as a film is also pretty noteworthy. This is a funny, heartfelt, and strange movie about the line between creative genius and madness, about success and selling out, about rock n' roll.

The film is actually presented not from Frank's point of view, but from that of a guy named Jon Burroughs. Jon, played by Domhnall Gleeson, is a young British guy, living a relatively boring middle-class life with his parents, dreaming big dreams of being a musician. He's got a decent amount of talent, but so far has used it to record pretty middling song demos that won't exactly serve as his ticket to the big time. However, his life takes a sudden strange turn when he encounters members of a band he admires - with the unpronounceable name of "Soronprfbs" - who are in need of a replacement keyboardist. Jon joins them for a gig, and though there is some resentment from the various band members, their singer and leader, Frank, takes a liking to Jon. Soon, Jon is whisked away to a remote cabin with the band, where Frank has decided they will stay until recording of their new album is complete. 

Frank, as mentioned, is a bit of an iconoclast (to put it mildly). No one has ever seen him without the giant cartoon head he wears. He doesn't take it off to eat, drink, or bathe. Frank himself subscribes to a weird zen philosophy of music making. His album recording process is as much about strange rituals and training as it is about the music. He's clearly a bit off his rocker, but he also inspires a strange, cult-like worship from his band-mates. As Jon grows more comfortable with Frank, he becomes increasingly open in his desire to take Frank and the band from little-known rock curiosity to full-on pop sensation. He begins posting YouTube videos of Frank, and books the band at major festivals, including Austin's South By Southwest. But what Jon doesn't quite realize is that Frank's quest to find the perfect sound is less about winning over the masses, and more about indulging his own obsessive quirks. The band is less a band, and more a support group. A collection of lost souls who need each other, but not necessarily anyone else.

In addition to Fassbender's remarkable turn as Frank, there are a couple of other really noteworthy performances in the film. One is Gleeson as Jon. Gleeson is excellent as our POV character, and though he starts off the film as the typical ordinary-geeky-kid-who-gets-thrust-into-a-new-world-of-crazy, he evolves into something else - a semi-destructive force who becomes blindly ambitious. He starts as the classic underdog protagonist, but ends as someone who you almost have to root against. Secondly, Maggie Gyllenhaal is excellent as Clara, a morose, prickly band member who has a complex, co-dependent relationship with Frank. The character reminds me just a bit of Julianne Moore in The Big Lebowski, as Gyllenhaal makes Clara darkly funny, but also just plain dark at times. Finally, Scoot McNairy as Don, another band member and acolyte of Frank's. World-weary and full of rock n' roll wisdom, Don takes Jon under his wing, and is the one who originally recruits him into the band. Don seems the most grounded of the band, but he may actually have the most pronounced issues. In any case, it's a funny and tragic turn from McNairy - definitely an actor to keep an eye on.

Director Lenny Abrahamson is not someone I was really familiar with before now, but he's now leapfrogged onto my movie-watching radar. What's impressive is that FRANK is both unbelievably odd and quirky, yet also has a realness to it that gives it a surprising humanity. There's a very delicate tonal balance achieved here. The movie is really funny at times, but it has scenes - including a nakedly emotional ending sequence - that are quite raw. There's a poignancy to FRANK - and to Frank - that stems from the movie's themes about art vs. commerce and the satisfaction gained from self-fulfillment vs. the adoration of others. Is music and art about simply doing what makes you and your circle of co-conspirators happy, or is it only valid if it reaches the masses? Frank's persona seems like a gimmick designed to get attention ... but is it? Or did it start that way, only to become a personal prison? Or was it, all along, just one person's crazy way of coping with major issues?

Regardless, FRANK looks at the madness of music-making, and the insanity of the search for rock n' roll perfection - with a keen satirical eye and a lot to say about art, music, and the human condition. Fassbender's performance is a brave one - and it further proves that the guy is as multifaceted and talented an actor as they come. This is a fascinating, strange film, and one of the year's most interesting indies.

My Grade: A-

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Is The Best and Biggest X-Men Film Yet

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Review:

- The Bryan Singer-directed X-MEN films were huge in their day. Rarely had we seen beloved comic book superheroes adapted for the big screen with so much seriousness of tone and purpose. Despite some clunky moments, these movies generated an excitement for comic book-based films that had not been seen since the Tim Burton Batman days. And yet ... I don't know if those movies 100% aged well, at least in my own mind. As much as the X-Men films took their characters seriously, there was also a sort of self-hating dullness to the films that now feels dated next to the colorful, comic-book roots-embracing Avengers films. Singer's muted colors, workmanlike black leather character uniforms, and eschewing of beloved comic tropes in favor of realism (reportedly Hugh Jackman had to beg Singer to let Wolverine call someone "bub") was a mixed blessing. It was, likely, what was needed to erase the day-glo nightmare memories of Joel Schumaker's abhorrent Batman films. But the X-films also felt like a bit of a letdown to those raised on the colorful sci-fi soap-opera of the 80's and 90's cartoons and comic books.

But lo and behold, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is Singer's most sci-fi, most over-the-top, and most epic X-Men movie by a mile. It fully embraces its plot's time-travel wackiness, and revels in comic book-style action scenes, high-concept sci-fi imagery, and a sense of anything-can-happen fun that previously eluded this franchise.

Loosely based on the classic Chris Claremont / John Bryne comic book story from the 80's, the new movie sees Wolverine sent back in time from an apocalyptic present (a grim, black-sky dystopia in which the few surviving mutants wage a hopeless war against the all-conquering robotic Sentinels), to the swingin' 70's ... in hopes of preventing disaster. As in the comics, Professor Xavier believes that if a pivotal assassination attempt planned by Mystique were to be thwarted, then it would prevent a chain of events leading to mass public anti-Mutant sentiment, and thus the creation of the Sentinels. But unlike the comics, where Kitty Pryde sends her older-self's consciousness back in time to inhabit her younger self's body, the movie version has franchise favorite Wolverine make the timestream trek. Since Wolvie doesn't age (theoretically), it makes sense that he'd be the one to go back. Plus, in the movie, it's explained that only Wolverine and his healing powers can withstand the mental toll of the process, which is, it seems, now one of Kitty's abilities (so she can phase through walls, and *also* transfer people's minds back in time - random).

But the great thing about the whole set-up is that it gives Singer and co. an excuse to have a dream-melding of his original X-cast with that of Matthew Vaughan's well-regarded X-Men: First Class prequel. That film was a breath of fresh air, bringing talented actors like Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Jennifer Lawrence into the fold. Once again, these three are huge spark plugs, and help to cover some of the weak spots that existed in the supporting cast of Singer's original lineup. And it's also just a lot of fanboyish fun to see the old and young versions of Professor X and Magneto in the same film. In particular, Patrick Stewart gets some great moments with McAvoy as his younger self. And let's face it, any excuse to bring back the legendary duo of Stewart and Ian McKellan is cause for much rejoicing. They quite simply rule (and as great as Fassbender is as a younger Magneto, he still can't match the sheer gravitas of McKellan in rage-mode).

Lawrence's Mystique is also a huge focus here. Rightfully so, I think, given how talented of an actress Lawrence is. And the actress does a fine job of making the character into more than just a badass in leaves-nothing-to-the-imagination blue body paint (though she is that, too). Here, Mystique is sort of the pendulum at the center of the eternal morality play being waged between Xavier and Magneto. To stand up for Mutantkind through peace and understanding, or through blunt force and aggression? The issue is forced by Peter Dinklage's Bolivar Trask, an anti-Mutant crusader and father of the Sentinel program. Future Xavier and his fellow X-Men know that Mystique's attack on Trask would lead to his Sentinels getting funding and eventually decimating the planet, Skynet-style. And so the fate of the future lies largely in Mystique's vengeful blue hands.

Singer populates the film with some of the most ingeniously shot set-pieces he's ever put to film. The biggest highlight comes thanks to the newly-introduced Quicksilver, a laid-back speedster who performs dazzling light-speed feats all while chilling to hippie rock on his slightly anachronistic headphones. Played by American Horror Story's Evan Peters, Quicksilver is one of the best new additions to the cast. And his big showpiece set piece - in which he makes quick (but seen in slo-mo) work of a room full of armed assailants - is emblematic of what makes this movie better than all other X-movies. It's fun, dazzling, funny, and fully embraces the potential of the character's powers. Singer also gets some good mileage out of Nicholas Holt's Beast, who gets to shine both in his geeky scientist guise and in his ass-kicking Mutant form.

The combination of Singer's seemingly reinvigorated direction with a surprisingly lean, mean, and effective script by Simon Kinberg makes the movie work in a way that it probably shouldn't. There's a lot going on here, but Kinberg's script ties everything together in a very digestible way that mixes plenty of solid character and emotional beats into the big sci-fi tapestry. Yes, Wolverine serves as our central character, but the movie soon morphs into a great Xavier / Magneto story that also feels like closure, of sorts, to this entire chapter of the X-Men cinematic saga. That said, the time-travel conceit allows for the kind of big, comic-bookish stuff that we really haven't seen before in the mainline X-movies. We get teams of X-Men fighting off legions of invading Sentinels in a Matrix-esque future. We get big, world-ending stakes. We get an anything-can-happen set-up in which all bets are off - with time-travel shenanigans going on, favorite characters can die at any time, maybe even on multiple occasions. And of course, the movie introduces a concept very familiar to comic book fans, but perhaps a bit of a revelation for newbies - the idea of the retcon. Basically, the time-travel hijinks give Singer and Kinberg the ability to selectively, retroactively undo a few choice developments from previous X-Men films (cough*3*cough), wiping the slate clean for future installments, but also just sort of leaving the house (or manor, in this case) in order.

DAYS OF FUTURE PAST really surprised me. Going in, I was weary of yet another X-Men movie, and weary of yet another film in which Hugh Jackman's Wolverine takes center stage. I wanted Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde to get some love, and for the franchise to move in a new direction more in line with The Avengers and other Marvel studios films. I wanted the bright colors and melodrama of the comics and cartoons. Well, this one may not have bright colors, but it did capture the bigness and craziness that made The Uncanny X-Men the biggest thing since sliced bread in the 80's and 90's. It's a fun movie, plain and simple, and has about everything you could ask for in an X-Men/First-Class passing-of-the-torch film. There are nice callbacks to the previous movies, as well as some nice stage-setting for stories yet to come. This is pretty much the ultimate Brian Singer X-Men movie, both keeping what worked about the older films but also addressing some of the issues. I'd still like to see the X-films take a different path after this one, but this is a film that elevates the franchise as a whole.

My Grade: A-

12 YEARS A SLAVE Is Brilliant and Poetic Depiction of the American Nightmare

 12 YEARS A SLAVE Review:

- 12 YEARS A SLAVE is such a unique, in some ways unusual film, that I honestly wasn't sure what to make of it, exactly, upon leaving the theater. This sprawling tale of American Slavery doesn't feel at all like what we've come to expect from films dealing with this era or with this narrative. Director Steve McQueen includes absolutely no flourishes of Spielbergian grandiosity in his film. Instead, he uses long, unwavering takes to create a film filled with artfully-depicted brutality, and positively overflowing with a feeling of overpowering, existential dread. The mix of unfiltered ugliness mixed with lyrical, poetic storytelling (and some sprinkling of gallows humor - both literal and figurative) creates a movie that plays out like a waking nightmare for its protagonist, the sold-into-slavery Solomon Northup. The result is a film that's utterly engrossing and endlessly praise-worthy. This is a film that has literary depth and subtext, but that also crackles with memorable visuals and cinematic sweep.

Solomon is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, and it's a career-making performance. Ejiofor brings a soulful, restrained dignity to the character that I don't think I fully appreciated until late in the film. I describe the performance in these terms because Solomon starts the movie as a free, educated black man - a man who enjoys a relatively decent and undeniably joyful life - with a loving wife, two young children, and respected in his upstate New York town as a knowledgeable and trustworthy builder. However, it's his hobby that gets him into trouble - his skill as a fiddle-player attracts the attention of two traveling entertainers who convince Solomon to accompany them for a few of their shows. When Solomon is deceived by the musicians, he suddenly wakes up in a dark prison, having been abducted, taken down south, and sold into slavery. And from that point on, he has to hide who he really is. Because all the things that helped him get ahead up North - his smarts, his eloquence, his education - are liabilities as a slave. In order to survive, he has to show restraint, hide his thoughts, hide his intellect, hide his rage. And that is what makes Ejiofor's performance so remarkable. We see hints of what's going on in his head - in Solomon's eyes. But only rarely is he free to say what he really thinks. The dichotomy between who Solomon was and who he is forced to become is absolutely jarring. Because the white slave owners view him as lesser, animalistic, primitive - so too is this how he must act. And Ejiofor pulls off this tricky balance - this performance full of subtle expressions and telling glances - with aplomb. His Solomon never fully loses his dignity or his almost regal-like aura of calm and wisdom. But it's not for lack of trying on the part of the slave-owners who want to strip him of his humanity. What's remarkable about the film is the push and pull in that dynamic. Despite all efforts to break Solomon, to make him the prototypical, subservient slave - it's just impossible. The guy is too smart, too resourceful, too full of life for that sort of reductive psychology to fully take hold.

As good as Ejiofor is, he's surrounded by a remarkable supporting cast that is filled with equally award-worthy performances. There's two additional turns that really stand out to me though. One is Michael Fassbender as slave-owner Edwin Epps. Epps is the second slave-owner that Solomon is sold to (following a stint with the kinder and more sympathetic Ford, played by Benedict Cumberbatch), and he's a monster. The violence and rage he directs at his slaves is indicative of deep-seated psychological issues. Further complicating Epp's mania is his lustful obsession with one of the female slaves, Patsey. Epps puts Patsey on a pedestal, routinely praising her as his best worker in the fields. He also routinely rapes her, sapping her soul and demoralizing her to the point where she is hopeless and suicidal. Epps' disturbing relationship with Patsey drives his wife (a great turn from Sarah Paulson) off the wall, and Patsey and the other slaves find themselves caught in the volatile couple's tumultuous relationship. Fassbender is riveting as Epps though. He's a thoroughly despicable villain, but also a deeply complex character - a strange brew of madness and rage. But he is also emblematic of the disease of the mind that permeated throughout the antebellum south. How was it, we wonder, that so many could condone slavery, or even sadistically take pleasure in it? Epps', as a psychological profile, is case in point. Fassbender does wonders with the character - scary yet fascinating.

That leads me to Lupita Nyong'o as Patsey. Similar to Solomon, she must outwardly seem subservient and appreciative of her masters. But in Patsey's eyes, we see the bubbling sadness and hopelessness. We see the remnants of youth and girlhood, which we see all but stripped away by Epps. And when Patsey is pushed to limit, when she can take no more, Nyong'o turns in a gripping, jaw-dropping performance when she, as Patsey, lets the emotions flow freely in a rare moment of open expression. She and Solomon are two sides of the same coin. Solomon's lived the life of a free man, and so knows what it is that he lost as a slave. Patsey has known nothing but slavery, and can't even fathom what life outside of it is like. Suffice it to say, Nyong'o makes Patsey into the film's unlikely star - a supporting character whose horrifying treatment under Epps shows slavery at its worst and most soul-crushing.

So many other great little performances are scattered throughout the film. I mentioned Cumberbatch and Paulson, who are both excellent. Paul Giamatti shows up briefly but memorably as a sleazy slave-trader. The great Michael K. Williams, of The Wire and Boardwalk Empire, also makes a brief but badass cameo. Another small but crucial role is played by Garret Dillahunt (whose presence reinforces my perception that the film actually has a lot of stylistic and thematic similarities to the HBO series Deadwood). Dillahunt does here what he does best - he plays a slightly crazy and unhinged guy who Solomon takes a big risk in trusting. Alfre Woodard is another iconic actress who shows up for a small but vital role, playing a favored slave who has grown quite comfortable with her status. Now, I've heard some criticism of Bradd Pitt's role as a Canadian journeyman who provides a crucial bit of help to Solomon. I thought that Pitt's freewheeling persona proved a good fit for the part, and he provides a crucial counterpoint to characters like Epps. Pitt's puzzlement at slavery helps to paint the obsession that men like Epps have with it as a sort of infectious disease that had taken root in the minds of the antebellum south. At the same time, what seems like simple sanity to us now was, in that time and place, the very definition of radical and subversive thought. Finally, I've got to mention Paul Dano. Dano is just the best at playing loathsome, weaselly characters who very much deserve the punch-to-the-face that they inevitably receive. He's played that sort of character a lot, but this might be his best overall variation on that theme since There Will Be Blood.

Thinking about Dano's character, and Fassbender's, and other aspects of the film ... there is something slightly, undeniably pulpy about 12 YEARS A SLAVE. I keep mentioning this when I hear people say they're not sure they can stomach the film. It is violent, it is brutal, and it is at times disturbing. But to McQueen's credit, it's also an incredibly entertaining film. That takes nothing away from the seriousness of the subject matter, or the emotional weight of the movie. But McQueen also doesn't shy away from giving his film style and atmosphere, and even a bit of over-the-topness. I'll say that the movie's best scene is a weird mix of darkly funny and oddly disturbing. In the scene, Solomon is all but left for dead, set to be hung, before the men doing the hanging are stopped before Solomon can be fully strung up. And so Solomon is left with his toes just barely touching the ground, straining to keep himself from strangling to death. Solomon is gasping, panting, flailing. And all around him - as McQueen keeps his camera still and centered - we see others, black and white, simply going about their business - paying absolutely no attention to the guy right there, in front of them, on the very precipice of life and death. It's a scene that goes from scary to funny to scary again, and it's a weird Twilight Zone moment that, in its own way, completely summarizes the entire movie in miniature. Because yes, this is Solomon's story, but it's also the story of a supposedly civilized nation that had become a country of brainwashed zombies, stuck in a purgatory-like state in which, somehow, this sort of atrocity wasn't worth batting an eye over.

And so the film does have that pulpy aspect, that dark humor,  and that slightly skewed aesthetic that makes it more than your typical Hollywood-ized history lesson. There are a lot of layers here. And McQueen proves himself, above all else, a great storyteller - not telling his narrative in a completely linear or traditional sense, but in a way that's incredibly gripping, yet different from what one might expect from this sort of story. He doesn't talk down to the audience, or oversimplify things. He uses flashbacks and flash-forwards to create a sense of disorientation, to reinforce that nightmare feeling. He uses long takes many times - fixing his camera's lens on nature, on faces, on images - to make us pay attention to detail, focus on juxtaposition, and soak in the emotion of a moment.

I also think that John Ridley's screenplay is worth mentioning. Ridley also wrote Red Tails - a movie that is full on pulp (whereas 12 Years A Slave is only pulp-tinged, I'd say), but also one that I don't think really telegraphed Ridley's full potential. I mentioned the comparison to TV's Deadwood earlier, and that comparison comes to mind when I think of this film's colorful dialogue - a sort of formal prose that lends a certain gravitas to the words that are spoken. The mix of poetry and vulgarity, formality and brutality, is in keeping with the weird dichotomies of the movie's setting.

The whole film, in fact, is one of dichotomies. Its central story is that of a worldly and well-regarded man suddenly plunged into a hellish life of slavery, in which it is assumed that he is sub-human. In this world of degradation and humiliation, Solomon is surrounded by brutal men who also regard themselves as god-fearing Southern Gentlemen. And then there's the absurdity that always strikes me with stories about slavery - the fact that the slaves that were so looked down upon were, despite that, so ever-present and such a constant and integral part of their owner's lives.

12 YEARS A SLAVE does not fit the template of what a big Hollywood Oscar-bait movie is supposed to be, and I think that's what makes it so great. This is a film that's genuinely challenging and thought-provoking. At times, I'd even call it an art-film in certain respects for the non-traditional ways that some of its key scenes unfold. At other times, I agree with the sentiment that it plays out almost like a horror film or a Twilight Zone episode - with an ordinary man suddenly thrust into a nightmare scenario that completely turns his world upside down. There's that noir-ish feeling of fate conspiring against him, of being trapped in a dark void from which escape is a near-impossibility. But when you couple that creepy vibe with the fact that this is real history - an adaptation of a real person's autobiography - there is, again, that dichotomy: of real-life-meets-unreality. Life as waking nightmare. A warped, backwards version of the American Dream in which, instead of upward mobility, a man is dragged from the middle class all the way down to the bottom, made a slave, forced to endure hell, as part of some mass delusion about skin color determining one's worth as a human being. 12 YEARS A SLAVE doesn't give you that swell of emotion and triumph when it ends. It's not a crowd-pleaser that sends you home happy, or in tears for that matter. No, the feeling you get at the end of this film is one of waking up from a strange dream. A dream that you pinch yourself to make sure that, yes, it was, in fact, only a dream. But here's the brilliance of the movie - this wasn't just a dream. This happened. That took a while to register with me. It took a few days for the full achievement of this film to fully sink in. But now, I can look back and recognize the unique brilliance at play here, and I can heartily recommend this film as one of the true must-see movies of 2013.

My Grade: A

PROMETHEUS - Ridley Scott's Mesmerizing Yet Frustrating Return to Sci-Fi

PROMETHEUS Review:

- This is going to be a hard review to write. The fact is ... I immensely enjoyed Prometheus. In some ways, it completely blew me away, and from a purely visual/aesthetic viewpoint, it was one of the most spectacular and beautiful films I've seen ... ever. And there were ideas here that I loved, moments that were mesmerizing and memorable. Just sitting back and watching this film in glorious IMAX 3D and being swept away by its grim and majestic sci-fi universe ... was one hell of an experience at the movies.

And I've been thinking about PROMETHEUS. Since I saw it, I've been rolling it over in my head. I want to make some sense of it - I want to believe that the film is great and that it simply demands multiple viewings to fully comprehend. But I've come to realize that this is a film that simply has to be taken down a peg for its flawed storytelling. Even though I was able to "just go with it" for much of the movie, this is indeed a film that arrives to us diminished from what it might have been.

The thing is ... Ridley Scott became a sci-fi icon on the backs of films that told stories in broad, at times almost abstract strokes. Alien, Blade Runner, Legend ... these are films that have a lot of ambiguity and that leave much to the viewer's imagination. They are films more about ideas and imagination and visual world-building than complex plotlines. And that's what makes them so resonant and captivating. Prometheus is almost the equal of those films in terms of sheer sense of imagination and visual wonder. Of course, Blade Runner and Alien never had the advantage of coming out in IMAX 3D. Prometheus, meanwhile, has perhaps the best use of 3D yet in any live-action film - silky smooth and seamless, yet completely immersive. But, back to the storytelling ... what's so frustrating is that Prometheus COULD have been a simple and more abstract story if told in a slightly different manner. But writer Damon Lindeloff had a couple of major obstacles in terms of crafting the script: a.) he was tasked with creating a story that - seemingly more for commercial reasons than anything else - had to tie-in to the mythos and continuity of the Alien films, and b.) he had to grapple with his past history as a TV writer and as a writer of highly episodic, serialized content.

Because, man, PROMETHEUS feels in a way like an incredible TV pilot. But as a movie, that means it's less than fully satisfying. The problem is, Lindeloff structures the plot like an episode of LOST. Throughout the film's running time, questions are posed that seem to demand specific answers: Why did one character betray another? Why were certain secrets kept? What are the true motivations of various characters? What is the explanation behind some of the various creatures that terrorize the cast - how did they come to be? Now, the movie COULD have been written in a manner so as not to pose these sorts of specific questions. But instead, it's LOST all over again ... one shoe drops, but the other shoe doesn't. The whole plot is built around key question marks practically flashing on the screen - "why did he do that?", "where did those come from?" - but they all end up being red herrings, because the payoffs never come. I've been thinking a lot about the film, as I said, and trying to figure out what IS in the movie and what ISN'T. Some may say "it's all in the movie." But that simply isn't true. And that's frustrating, because there's no room for interpretation - ALL interpretations are equally valid because we just don't have enough information to posit anything except pure guesses. And at some point, you have to wonder: how much of Prometheus was meant to be ambiguous, and how much of it simply got gutted in the development process? At what point do you draw the line between feeding an audience's imagination, and simply crafting a film that's full of swiss cheese-esque holes?

Ridley Scott is no stranger to these sorts of debates. BLADE RUNNER contains one of the all-time most talked-about ambiguous endings in film. But the genius of that ambiguity is that it presents us with two possibilities - each casting the story and the character of Deckard in a different light. Is Deckard a replicant, or isn't he? But Prometheus never sets up that sort of narrative framework to go off of. I'll talk more about the plot in a second, but I'll just quickly mention the arcs of two key characters: Weyland - an elderly CEO and billionaire (Guy Pierce) who travels the cosmos in search of the key to eternal life, and David - an android who serves Weyland. In short, we're left to infer just about everything about these characters and the motivations behind their actions. It hurts, because both are potentially awesome characters. Michael Fassbender in particular plays David so well - he kicks ass. But why does David do the things he does in the movie? I have no idea. I can guess - there are a dozen possible and sort-of plausible reasons. But we just don't know, and the answers aren't between the lines either. But what's weird is that Scott and Lindeloff seem to *want* to say something profound with David. They clearly want us to - through him - think about life and death and creation and destruction and good and evil. But David ends up as a total cypher - we want to latch on to this amazing performance from Fassbender, but we end up just transplanting concepts from other stories about robots and artificial life onto his character - because he's such a blank canvass. Now again, in the original ALIEN, there was an android character who played a similar role. But let's face it, Ash in Alien - and Alien as a whole - never had much pretension of being the sort of philosophical mind-trip that Prometheus wants to be. Alien just wanted to be a futuristic survival movie, thick with atmosphere, that scared the hell out of you. Prometheus is trying to be more than just a horror flick. It aims to be about life, the universe, and everything ... but at that, it only partially succeeds.

So let's back up for a minute, and talk about the plot of Prometheus. Essentially, this is the Alien-verse, but in a timeframe just prior to Ellen Ripley's infamous encounter with the deadly xenomorphs aboard the Nostromo. Where we're at now is the several decades in the future, at a time when huge advances have been made in space travel. Even as humans now have the capability to explore deep space, a quest comes up worthy of our newfound capacity for insterstellar discovery. A husband-and-wife team of scientists - Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Halloway (Logan Marshall-Green) - has been tracking ancient etchings across the globe, and have found common-denominator depictions of godlike alien beings descending from the heavens. Accompanying each of the etchings is what the scientists believe to be a star map. Now, they are convinced that they've found a roadmap to another civilization - a civilization that just might be our creators, our gods. They've also conviced Peter Weyland, an aging innovator whose company seems to have pioneered advances in both robotics (producing a line of lifelike androids) and space travel/exploration. Weyland funds a journey to the stars in search of the alien beings and their secrets. He deploys Weyland Corp. representative Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) to oversee the scientists and their mission. Vickers, Shaw, and Halloway are also accompanied by a crew that includes Janek (Idris Elba) - the ship's world-weary captain, an erratic geologist named Fifield, and David - Peter Weyland's personal android assistant, who oversees the ship while the crew goes into hypersleep for the bulk of their journey.

What more you need to know is simply that the name of the ship is Prometheus, named after the Titan of myth who sought the secret of fire and got burned for his hubris. Very quickly, amidst mixed motivations both spiritual, scientific, and corporate, we realize that the crew of the ship Prometheus may be in for more than they bargained for with this mission.

The thematic scope of Prometheus is vast and epic. While ALIEN only hinted at its larger universe, Prometheus tries to define the very nature of the universe itself. The movie even begins with a mesmerizing Genesis scene that is its own alien-infused version of the creation myth. Soon enough, the film hints at revelations about not just the iconic aliens of ALIEN, but of the secret origins of ALL life. Yep, this is one cosmic, grand, ambitious film. And honestly, there are two areas where Prometheus absolutely excels. One is when it's simply in planetarium mode, dazzling us with sprawling alien landscapes, burning our retinas with eye-melting techno-wizardry, and sweeping us off our feet with grand visions of the far reaches of outer space. Ridley Scott, at 74, is still THE MAN when it comes to crafting evocative sci-fi visuals. And with this film, he also proves to be the anti-Michael Bay. Those of the ADD generation may not have the patience for the methodically-paced opening act of the film, but I loved it. I loved that Scott lingers and lets us soak up the epicness, and immerse ourselves in this cosmic playground. The semi-retro-sounding, epic-cosmic score only adds to the grandeur, with bombastic, haunting tones that give the film even more of a larger-than-life, operatic feel. Forget for a moment every critique I mentioned earlier - story complaints aside, make no mistake - Prometheus is pure audio/visual awesomesauce. The brilliant visuals here deserve an Oscar. The score is fantastic. And Ridley just directs the hell out of this film as only he can. The man knows how to create a mood of foreboding otherworldliness, and he does so here in legendary fashion. The images that this film assaults you with are truly the stuff that dreams - and nightmares - are made of. The CGI is elegant and artful, and the shot composition is crafted for maximum impact. On that note, the second area where the film really nails it is in the Alien-esque moments of action-horror. Scott crafts some true holy $%&#, nightmarish moments of otherworldly terror, and when business picks up, the movie delivers with some crazy human vs. creature showdowns that will leave your jaw hanging.

As mentioned, there are so many little moments in the film that are GREAT. Some of these moments are quiet and contemplative ... Fassbender as David watching Laurence of Arabia and trying to emulate it ... Idris Elba being badass and telling Charlize Theron what's what ... an absolutely incredible sequence where David uncovers the secrets of the alien race that the crew has sought out, and is literally surrounded and engulfed by the knowledge of the ancients. On the other hand, some of thes film's great moments are balls-to-the-wall insane ... a riveting and squirm-worthy scene of Noomi Rapace having to self-operate ... and a final, Alien-esque showdown with a hideous Lovecraftian monster.

I also thought that most of the cast was excellent, even if their characters had rather thin backstories at times. Rapace was quite good in the lead. Theron was suitably cold and calculating. Elba was a badass. Marshall-Green seemed a little in-over-his-head though. And Guy Pierce, while good, was hampered by some very odd f/x to make him seem aged.

So I'll be honest ... in writing this review, I was hoping that I'd come to some sort of internal consensus about the film. But now that I've talked about its merits and its flaws, I still feel torn. Prometheus is an incredible, state-of-the-art aesthetic experience. I can't recommend enough going to see it in the theater on the biggest and best screen possible - and yes, in 3D. And I also give it credit for being so thematically ambitious and daring. This is a movie that's going to be talked about and debated for a long, long time. And of course, you never know ... a sequel that follows up on some of the questions posed here, or even a couple of choice re-inserted or re-cut scenes (there's already talk of a director's cut on blu-ray) could be enough to force a reexamination of the film and force it to be looked at in a different context. But who knows. Was this film intended to be Part 1 of a multi-part epic? If viewed as the first chapter of a serialized story, then hey, a lot of my concerns might be a moot point. I also dont know if this is simply a film that got hacked to bits by the studio. We all know that Ridley Scott has a long history of having his films butchered upon release. And yet ... I've seen some interviews with Scott and Lindeloff, and I haven't seen any comments in the vein of "what happened was ____, and don't worry, that will be further followed up on in the imminent sequel." And then I also think back on LOST, and think about how that show was so effective at posing questions, yet ultimately - frustratingly - unable to provide satisfying follow-through. And I can't help but wonder if Prometheus is a similar beast - a movie so wrapped up in building up its mysteries that it forgets that mysteries alone don't make for a satisfying narrative. But as I said, it's extra-frustrating because the aesthetics of the  film are so strong, so powerful on their own, that the film probably would have worked better had it been *more* minimalist. Instead, it feels like the plot is only given to us in half-measures - wanting to craft a cosmic mythology, but not having the vision to go all the way. Prometheus is so close to being a classic that it hurts. And I may just end up having a soft spot for it over time ... we'll see. But right now, my feelings are too conflicted to call Prometheus unequivically great, given the less-than-wholly-fulfilled potential of Ridley Scott's return to the world of science fiction. That said - Sir Ridley - more, please. You're too brilliant of a filmmaker not to return to this genre, and Prometheus teases us that, with the right script, Scott can still be as good as ever.

My Grade: B+