I am over the moon to report that ALIEN: ROMULUS is the ALIEN sequel that I’ve been waiting decades for. Not only does it take place between Ridley Scott’s 1979 masterpiece ALIEN and James Cameron’s 1986 classic ALIENS but it cleverly borrows the best elements from both films (with a sprinkle of aesthetics from the excellent ALIEN: ISOLATION game). This is a machine that hums with the thrilling gothic haunted house vibes of the OG yet doesn’t shy away from the gun blasting, action set pieces that drove its most successful sequel (while wisely jettisoning the empty nihilism of ALIEN 3, the artsy quirkiness of RESURRECTION, the bloated pretentiousness of PROMETHEUS and the convoluted compromise of COVENANT (Not to mention the goofiness of ALIEN VS PREDATOR and the sloppiness of REQUIEM). BTW: despite this slander avalanche with the exception of COVENANT, I’m a BIG fan of the ALIEN series & it’s possible my distaste for that last entry is mostly due to loyalty to the great character Elizabeth Shaw who I believe was done dirty to an unforgivable degree). Director Fede Alvarez cuts out all the chaff, leans hard (and I mean hard) into horror and delivers a believable, grounded world occupied by two of the most compelling characters to ever grace the franchise. In fact, I dug it so much that I had to award it my highest honor which is to say that I dug into my moth strewn cheapskate wallet and paid to watch it a second time a few days after my first viewing (I couldn’t help myself, the movie is just so damn immersive and you know I’d do anything to play hooky from reality).
Plucky yet disgruntled Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) dreams of living in a world where she can see the sun but instead she’s an exploited cog for the oppressive Weyland -Yutani corporation which has no issue grinding her down to smithereens and is already responsible for the death of her parents. Her only joy in life comes from gleefully enduring groan worthy dad jokes supplied by her synthetic sibling Andy (Incredible David Jonsson who deserves all the laurels and is instantly sympathetic, fascinatingly nuanced and literally impeccable in every scene). The two are presented with a possible escape from their drudgery in the form of a plan devised by Rain’s ex boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) to pillage a derelict space station for sleeping chambers that would allow them to travel to greener pastures. What Tyler’s band of misfits really needs to pull off the caper is the talents of Andy who as a synthetic, can communicate with the ship’s computer system and allow them the full access required. Rain is desperate enough to take the offer and of course, nothing goes as planned. In fact, the group finds themselves trapped in a living hell filled with numerous beasties (both familiar and new fangled) and hurling towards an inevitable deadly collision (if they last that long- which doesn’t seem likely due to the wall to wall monsters roaming about cruising for nonconsenual hosts).
ALIEN: ROMULUS miraculously takes the tried and true trapped on a time bomb ship stuffed with ferocious creatures premise and consistently pumps fresh, imaginative life into it. Beyond the titular alien menace, the setting breeds many innovative dangers that creatively play around with gravity, room temperature, deadly acid and of course, the unreliable nature of elevators. Many times survival and escape seem absolutely impossible and the multitude of monstrosities feel completely overwhelming. Even the more familiar menaces appear injected with horrific new vibrancy. The film takes its sweet time setting up its merciless mousetrap but when the dominoes begin to fall it's a steep non-stop roller coaster ride complete with unpredictable turns and a sense of tangible peril. Further persuasion is supplied by a fantastic, nudging, triggering score that nearly throttles care of Benjamin Wallfisch (IT, BLADE RUNNER 2049). This is true edge of your seat business set up with a real time countdown to destruction that unnerves to the core. I tried not to but yes, I made audible yelping noises on several occasions but luckily I was not alone. Crawling through this collapsing house of horrors, I felt the whole theater was as enraptured as myself, something I haven’t felt in a long time.
Now, to be fair, there is perhaps a few moments of regrettable wonkiness thanks to some overstepping CGI (don’t worry it doesn’t involve the very solid xenomorphs who have never looked better or more menacing). I was able to use my always handy imagination to slink past the offending blemishes but I understand that’s not going to be possible for everybody. The strange thing is that the eyesore in question could have been so easily avoided with some simple editing or PATTY DUKE SHOW camera angles but I guess they had to go for it (CGI hubris is a dangerous drug). In any case, it doesn’t effect the storytelling and I’m confident it will look better (or at least look less jarring) on the small screen in the future. It’s really just a visual flaw on an otherwise beautifully structured canvas and if nothing else it at least exists in order to provide one hell of a surprise for longtime fans. All in all, I am overflowing with gratitude towards any and all who made this long time coming, worthy (and truly horrifying) sequel possible. It’s like a dream (albeit a very nerve-racking and terrifying dream) come true.
I'm only a fan of Alien; I pretend the others don't exist. I had no hope for this, but it still managed to piss me off because it hit everything I knew it would and I am quite frankly tired of being proven right. I know it is useless to try and dissuade anyone from their opinion but I think it sucked.
It played like just another "greatest hits/remember this" film.
Let's see what we've got; we have Rain, the bland, monotone actor (this is coming from someone who is monotone; I'm like HAL 9000 on Klonopin, but at least I recognize this as a negative and I'm not calling myself an actor and subjecting anyone to it on film) who gives off the feeling that they can't be bothered to be on set.
Bjorn or whatever his name is, was just a dumb shit mush mouthed motherfucker, I had no idea what he was babbling on about, nor did I care and was just waiting for him to become part of the body count.
We've got the asian chick who serves the important plot device of…being asian. The pregnant chick (gee, that won't come up in the third act, will it?) who isn't a character, just a plot device. Andy, the retarded android (really, after Ash, we didn't need anymore android characters and certainly not retarded ones) who is also black (very important, that).
The shitshow kicks off right from the beginning with the Alien 3 20th century Fox logo thing, we get scenes and lines of dialogue stolen wholesale from previous installments (Rain getting off the elevator to save Andy, just like Ripley saved newt in Aliens, the water drinking bird, the android going through vents "I prefer artificial life form, myself", "you have my sympathy" and of course everybody's favorite "get away from her, you bitch" are just a few I recall).
The zero gravity fight was also stolen from the original Alien 3 script and executed in the least exciting way possible; the underwater sequence in Alien Resurrection (the filmic equivalent of a fart floating through the infinite void of space) was better done.
There has been much lauding of the "atmosphere" of the film; it has all the atmosphere of space, that is to say none; it's a vacuum.
Of course we continue the trend of shoehorning dead actors into substandard films in call backs to their roles in infinitely better films of the past in the form of Ian Holm's Rook ('cause get it? Lance Henriksen's character was called Bishop, oh boy, aren't we clever, cue the Jerry Goldsmith theme).
In the 23 years since I first became aware of it, when Nancy Marchand's face was oddly grafted onto another actress's body in The Sopranos, the execution of this technique has always been ungainly and just seems to be getting worse with each passing year.
Now the plot commits the double sin of not only being cut and paste bullshit but retconning the events of the only worthwhile film in the series.
These nonentity characters go to the remains of the Nostromo (how are there remains? it was annihilated in a nuclear explosion at the end of Alien) and where they find our old "presumed dead" pal, the xenomorph (who if anyone cares to recall was blasted into the nothingness of space at the conclusion of Alien- so the xenomorph is impervious to rocket fire being shoved up its ass and has no need for eating or breathing for years on end; ok, got it, moving along).
This robs Ripley of her victory at the end of Alien and demotes her from her much lauded status as a "bad ass, boss bitch" to "bitch who just barely got away by the skin of her teeth".
A few crappy CGI and so-called "action" scenes happen, then we have some Prometheus black fluid nonsense and an alien-human hybrid (isn't that what the xenomorph is?) which is laughably, embarrassingly inferior looking to the one in Resurrection and the thing gets blown out of an air lock for what, like the 400th time? and the film signs off with a final report ala Alien.
This movie really and truly sucks. I wish they would have gone with my spec script which is a cross over with Star Trek, in which the ever wise Romulans hear that this movie is being filmed on a planet neighboring their home planet, Romulus and take the advice of Ripley from Aliens and "nuke the entire site from orbit" as it's "the only way to be sure" these films stop being made.
Ghastly hit upon, in my eyes the most glaring plot illogic in so many sci-fi films that I stopped counting long ago, though Newt in Aliens, the Ghoul Crew in Pandorum, and the Awakened Reality Crusaders in The Matrix all come to mind right away….that of the Survivor(s) in some techincal, steampipe laden landscape, bereft of the color green in any form, that somehow manages to thrive or at least live for years on end in spite of no food source whatsoever. To think of them endlessly breaking into vending machines and eating Snickers Bars just makes me roll my eyes.
thenewbigwig,
I'll let my friend, Blackadder summarize Alien Romulus:
I really liked it. I also liked Aileen Wu, and wanted to see more of her. Alas,
What I loved about Romulus is the kinetic movement and the action scenes. Even in small character-building moments, you can feel Fede Alvarez moving the story along and giving you what you need to know for the rest of the story (like Andy's later change in personality). I was really into Rain and Andy's sibling relationship (of sorts), which was something new I hadn't seen in the earlier films. That didn't surprise me, as Alvarez's earlier films build the action on the relationships between the characters. He's a great director of action scenes, especially when set in confined spaces (as in Don't Breathe). I was all in for the last twenty minutes, with the surprise final creature.
What I didn't care for were the silly callbacks to the earlier films. Not the connection to Prometheus and Covenant. I liked that, especially the way it bridged to the climax of the film. I mean the recycled lines (which means Andy says a famous bit of dialogue before Ripley does, chronologically – which is really lame, and robs Sigourney Weaver of a triumphant moment).
I'm also referring to resurrecting the likeness of a dead actor through CGI (terrible-looking CGI, at that), which is tasteless and adds nothing to the plot. It could have easily been another actor, and was, before the computer image was added, and changed nothing in the story.
Unkle Lancifer – I really like Covenant, but I agree with you regarding Elizabeth Shaw. The rumor is that Fox did not want Noomi Rapace back, which is why we got Katherine Waterson's Daniels instead. Early drafts of the Covenant script featured Doctor Shaw. I liked Waterson, but she was essentially asked to play a variation on Ripley, which Doctor Shaw was not.
Ghastly1,
!!! Wow!!! That sucks that you hated it so much but I guess since you hate the entire series, it makes sense. I do agree that the first one is easily the best. It’s pretty much flawless with perhaps the lone exception of the Ash decapitation effect but ironically it’s still more effective than what modern CGI was able to cook up here. I do disagree with the Alien human hybrid looking better in RESURRECTION. I love that poor sweet creature with the sad eyes but he reminded me too much of Falkor in THE NEVERENDING STORY to be properly effective for me. I preferred the Alberto Giacometti look the new dude is sporting. Also as stated in my review I lOVED Andy and I dug his relationship with Rain. I’ve always felt kinship with synthetics ever since the replicants in BLADE RUNNER because I can relate to being conditioned to think I’m less than human but that’s a long story I won’t get into here! I’ll close on another thing I do agree with you on, the “Get away from her you bitch” reprise was way too much! They needed to finesse that callback a bit more and they didn’t need to throw THAT many bones to the audience but I was able to shrug it off as the writers just trying to have some fun.
Thenewbigwig,
I never think about these things! But I grew up on Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers so I’m pretty lenient in regards to sci-fi logic!
SDC,
Yeah, I gotta say, even though I was able to accept that CGI actor bit they must have known it was going to be a problematic choice, why not hedge their bets and not rock the boat to such a degree? It really could have been anyone. Why not give Winona a chance to redeem her questionable Cal performance? Or I would have loved a "working Joe” robot from the Isolation game or even a new character or another Andy model might have been interesting. I’m sure the deceased person in question’s estate must have been given a check so maybe that’s a good thing. They may have needed some extra cash to fix the roof or something. I do admit the scene DID get a legit jaw drop & gasp from me before I started noticing the blurry ghost teeth (why not cut away at the more problematic moments and just do VO stuff? Oh well, some day they will be able to fix it like how they erased the strings holding up the spinners in BLADE RUNNER.
I wish I could get over my COVENANT aversion! I tried a couple times! I keep seeing it ranked so high in other’s ranking of the series and I feel left out of something but like I said, I have an emotional response to Shaw's absence I can’t get over and that’s OK, film is art and I have to respond emotionally otherwise there’s no point. I would love to see Ridley’s original ALIEN: PARADISE vision which properly included Shaw. I feel any other version is a compromise. It’s so sad because FOX has consistently made bad decisions with the series so I don’t know why they thought they knew better than Scott. Also I think I was genuinely growing bored with the David character and how convoluted things were getting. Suddenly we were expected to watch short films and read books to keep up with what was going on? All the important info should be in the movie!
So that’s another thing I dig about ROMULUS, it’s pretty straightforward and returns to the haunted house in space vibe I love best.
Anyway here is my current ranking (subject to change at any time)
1ALIEN (perfect horror)
2ALIENS (great horror with added action)
3ALIEN: ISOLATION (scariest game ever, I mostly hide)
4ALIEN: ROMULUS (return to horror with characters I care about)
5PROMETHEUS (stunning to look at, great characters (esp Shaw) + that operation scene is incredible)
6RESURRECTION (Weaver is great and I love the failed clones scene so much)
7ALIEN 3 (used to be much higher for me but way too many creature POV running through tunnels stuff makes me sleepy. Dig Weaver’s martyr death though)
8ALIEN VS PREDATOR (Silly but so much fun, Secretly love this even more but embarrassed to rank higher)
9 COVENANT (still mad, still hold a grudge. Suspect Waterson was hired for her height. And frankly its sorta boring)
10AVP REQUIEM (say it with me now: It’s too dark to see what’s happening! I did get a blu ray for a buck recently so I’ll see if that helps)
All in all, love the series, blemishes and all. Seen them all many times each and will do so again in the future (even that darn Shawless COVENANT)
Unk,
I had to look up Alberto Giacometti, as I'm not super well versed on modern artists but I'm sure you're right, that must be who they ripped off for that terrible design (see I'm learning here).
My fear is that the alien series will be a neverending story.
I have always found this anthropocentric nonsense in films and tv shows where nonhuman characters seek to experience and/or emulate the lowest order of human emotions and experiences or humans projecting their ridiculous childish emotions onto inanimate objects and the universe as a whole, which do not share them or care about them in any way.
Didn't like Data doing it in Star Trek: The Next Generation (Lore was right, justice for Lore), didn't like any of the endless specious asinine humanistic sermonizing from Picard to Q (just kill him already), didn't like The Terminator "knowing now why we cry" in Judgment Day, don't like it being done in Romulus.
It is a cheap way to try and add emotional depth to characters and situations which do not warrant them.
As an aside, I also have to scold myself for lazily using the term "xenomorph", it was used in a moment of stupidity, weakness and impulsivity and personally, I've always hated that term.
Seeing as how horror franchises have characters such as "Leatherface" and "Pinhead" and considering the H.R. Giger biomechanical origins of the character, I propose the affectionate sobriquet "Dickhead" for the alien; henceforth, that is what I will refer to it as.