Prospect (2018) – A Movie A Day 2021 #12
Prospect (2018) – A Movie A Day 2021 #12
Like many other people around the world, I’m a big fan of The Mandalorian. I’m a fan not only because it’s a fantastic series that makes exceptional use of the larger Star Wars universe, but it also introduced me to Pedro Pascal. I know now that I’d seen Pascal in some of his previous roles including parts in Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Equalizer 2, but The Mandalorian was the first time his name and face (what little we see of it) really stuck with me. I’m at the point now where I will watch pretty much anything he’s in. So when I was cruising through Netflix and saw Pedro Pascal in a sci-fi movie, it was an easy decision to stop searching and end my usually-too-long Netflix browsing session.
The movie I stopped down on was Prospect. It’s a sci-fi thriller/drama from 2018 starring Pedro Pascal and Sophie Thatcher. The story takes place sometime in the future where Cee (Thatcher) travels to an alien moon with her father (played by Jay Duplass). Cee’s father, Damon, is a prospector, and he and Cee are on the alien moon to dig up enough valuable gems to set them up for life. Naturally though, a score as big as the one Damon describes to his daughter comes with a lot of dangers and drawbacks. Not only are the gems volatile and dangerous to acquire, but Damon was given the information by a group of ruthless mercenaries who are currently guarding the site. On top of that, Damon and Cee’s landing pod goes off course and breaks on its way down to the surface of the moon, the air on the moon is toxic, and Damon and Cee have a strict time limit or they’ll be abandoned when the main ship in orbit departs on a set schedule with or without them. So yeah, lots of problems. Also, there are bandits/people trying to survive in the moon’s forest, and that’s where we meet Ezra (played by Pedro Pascal).
I don’t really want to go into any more detail about the plot beyond the setup, because the twists and turns that the story takes are really well done and deserve to be experienced rather than explained. All I’ll really is is that what follows after the setup is a tense and dramatic story of survival, trust, and humanity. There is some action here and there, but for the most part the movie focuses on the tense relationships between the characters as they try to move forward in what sometimes feels like a hopeless situation.
Prospect is a very pretty movie. The jungle of the alien moon feels familiar in many ways, but it also always feels slightly alien as well. At times the overgrown vegetation is pleasing to look at, but when you look closer and see the plants overtaking a rotting spacesuit or the remains of a previous dig gone wrong, you start to get a sense of the dangers the plants might be hiding. Also, the air feels thick with all sorts of things floating around, and if you have pollen allergies like me, you can really start to feel it in your head and chest just watching the movie.
The acting in Prospect is great as well, and that’s probably the biggest reason why I enjoyed the movie so much. Thatcher and Pascal have great chemistry in their antagonistic relationship, and their performances help enhance the tension of every scene. Pascal in particular is wonderful. Without spoiling anything, there is one scene rather late in the movie where something gross and potentially traumatic has to happen. Rather than focus of the spectacle of the gross actions taking place though, the camera focuses on Pascal’s face as everything is happening just off screen. Pascal’s reactions tell you everything you need to know, and the range of emotions he conveys in that single shot are pretty amazing.
I would recommend Prospect to pretty much anyone who enjoys a good, tense thriller/drama. If you enjoy science fiction as well, then that’s a great bonus. There’s enough sci-fi jargon to scratch that sci-fi itch, but there’s not so much that it’s going to block people out who don’t care about spaceships and alien worlds. The focus of the movie is largely on building characters with a bit of action, so if that’s your thing, definitely check out Prospect.