Completely crazy I know, but that evil Queen from “Thor & Bella,” is back. She didn’t die and in fact in the horribly scary future, she travels on space ships to moons that are years away. I don’t mind because she has toned down the freaky, evil magic and instead is just kinda stern but that is what happens to bosses who don’t have full support from management, which she is.
Oh and she isn’t even slightly ugly and does pushups covered with jelly preservatives and sweat, which is pretty sweet. I still don’t think she smiled once in the whole movie but, didn’t bother me.
So the movie I saw is “Prometheus,” but the truth is, it reminds me sooooo much of these shows I remember about aliens with freaky-deaky black banana heads, sharp teeth, slime skin and acid blood. First there was one about just one of these black, creepy-as-bleep death machines (with a robot modeled after the original Bilbo Baggins) and then there was a sequel with dozens of nasty aliens and their way-clingy babies.
So I remember those movies. Somebody out there in reader land thought I was, like, 15-years-old.
I wish!
Then people wouldn’t be telling me to get a job all the time.
The first one I only saw at home in full on 2.0 stereo when my parents didn’t pay attention at the video stores (the stores were like Redbox but you could actually walk inside them.) The second one I saw in the theater. I have this really fresh memory of trying not to pee my pants (I really, really had to go but couldn’t leave) and accidentally crushing this girl’s hand a little. It wasn’t like, broken or anything serious. She eventually married some other dude. (Sorry chic, I hope you read this and have the same fond memory. Show this to all the girls you know who are married in case it was her.)
Anyway, this new movie is a lot like a mash up of both of those. A bunch of scientists go to space to look for some muscled albino giants who vandalized a bunch of caves on earth but who are total lightweights and can’t hold even a cup full of alien moonshine. This Queen is with them and she is an ice queen now, with a lowercase Q, but like I said, she is unhappy middle management – which is really unhappy.
This time though, all the people with the queen are excellent actors, including the business savvy drug dealer from the best show in the history of shows, “The Wire.” Respect to him too for getting out of Baltimore and becoming a space ship captain. Especially good was this robot made to look just like Magneto when he was young, but not when he was older and looked like Gandalf. His name is David and he rules the movie with his very own kind of special robot-crazy. He is spiffy, watched “Lawrence of Arabia” and you want to play basketball and ride bikes with him but also sometimes he is a creeper and you want to run away at top speed.
But he could catch you.
Easy.
Anytime he wanted.
But weird that in the future they will make robots look like people associated with “Lord of the Rings” movies. Kinda gives me an idea of what kind of robot to make that looks like Aragorn – you know – just for the women.
So this space ship flies away for a couple of years. Now, if you haven’t guessed, I am not a scientist. Also I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night or any night; I think for they money I can do better. But the closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, which is more than four light years away and these scientist weirdoes say out loud (or maybe it was creepy David) they have been sleeping for two years plus some months, days, hours and minutes, but they probably can’t travel faster than light speed, so were they awake for a long time and then only went to sleep later? Or how did they get there so fast? More like 22 years. I mean they still ride four wheelers when they get there so, light speed? Notice to you silly screenwriters, use Google when you make stuff up because we will catch you.
It made me feel weird to type that.
So anywho, if you have watched a commercial for this flick, you already know they have the coolest mapping equipment ever seen with these glowing red globes and then they discover some mighty peculiar black buildings on this distant-but-not-that-distant moon and you also already know, really everybody knows, that things go, well, uh, bad.
At this point I should tell you: Don’t bring the kids, but you probably already knew that. The other thing I should tell you is, as my granny used to say, “make a poo poo before you go.” Those of you who demand dignity in a writing thing about a movie: Plan ahead and vacate your bowels at home. Look, I am not going to pretend that this scary movie is going to make you poop your pants. It isn’t, unless you already poop your pants and then, no offense to you, we all have problems. But when things start to go bad, you are going to sit in your movie chair, and clench up. Really tight. You are going to squirm in your seat, your heart is going to race, you are going to sweat a little and it might be hours and hours before you can “go” again, so take care of it at home. (And don’t hold hands — see above.)
The hilarious thing about this is, when it starts, the all-knowing audience can see it coming but wholly cow, it will freak you anyway. The tentacle people (if you don’t know who I mean, be very glad) are going to build a monumental statue to the glory of this one part. Might even worship it. I hope real aliens never get any ideas from this flick and I hope real aliens don’t have bodies that look so much like human private parts. But this crazy audience watched this scene as horrified as I can remember seeing in a theater in decades (cuse I am not 15) and when it was over, they clapped.
In the middle of the freaking movie, they clapped. Dude ran to the top of the stairs and did a Rocky pose with both arms to the sky and the hipsters were glad to see it. People high-fived. One person rolled in the isle. Tears of joy were shed, hands were crushed, babies will be born in nine months — and lots and lots and lots of clenching up.
Then there is this medical part. Don’t let anybody tell you about it and don’t cover your eyes.
But lets pause for a moment and yell at the screenwriters again. Send them angry tweets with your mean, angry face photos. A bunch of scientists (really “smart” people) are YEARS away from earth and family and the beach and Del Taco, and they go to this screwy, empty moon world, and when they find a little air, they decide they should take off their helmets. Nobody nobody nobody nobody is going to take off their helmet ten minutes after arriving on a moon with underground castles and a landing strip. Nobody. Superman would leave his helmet on and if he didn’t Bat-Man would kick his teeth in because he wouldn’t want to risk being contaminated by stuff that is weird and undetectable because you know, it’s ON A NEW WORLD! Duh. Plus, they don’t pay attention to the little things that are science like, stuff crawling on the ground.
So I want to stop now because I don’t want to ruin anything — better to go in blind. And not to be a cinema or art geek (too late) but somebody better send H.R. Giger a love letter and bottles of drink and massage gift certificates and then go rub his feet in person for inspiring the design of this moon’s housing projects. Maybe they already did, because I didn’t get a press kit (yes studio publicist people, this is me giving you the hard stare) but that dude’s double-helix things are on the screen pretty much always and that gave lots of juice to the audience celebration. It is not only bad-to-the-bone but bad-to-the-creepy-exoskeleton. Can’t say enough really, so imagine about three more paragraphs of praise with extra smart sentences that leap off your computer screen and make you quote them on Twitter.
Your eyes will be having an organic-mechanical-nightmare-technology-furniture-party with balloons and dancers so if you dig that, go buy a ticket. If you don’t dig that, “Anne of Green Gables,” is probably on PBS, definitely on Netflix.
Remind your brain not to get too pissed though when some stuff, like I already said, comes and your mind screams that high-pitched sound they used three times in the movie commercial that haunts you.
In fact, I bet that is where they got that sound, from some focus-group audience brain. The awesomeness of most of the two hours makes the moments of hillbilly writing that I didn’t mention all of (sorry real hillbillies, you aren’t good at space stuff) so irritating.
Last thing, there are two endings. One sets up ideas for the next film and the ideas are so sweet and so adventurous and so pure sci-fi horror and so spacey and so promising that I was giving them the thumbs up from my chair. Hot.
Then they tack on a little postcard that isn’t awesome, like when your Aunt sends you a note from Preston, Idaho. My director’s cut would be 20 seconds shorter. In fact, just leave early. So, mostly I like the movie and I want to see more ice queen flicks, because, hey, we hardly knew you, and more pushups would be good. But, also to the movie sometimes: DUH! Still, fingers crossed for a sequel.
Note: Another post from our film reviewer Sand WitchKing.
