ALIEN: ROMULUS
Thoughts Before Watching: I'm a fan of Fede Alvarez especially his 'Evil Dead' film from 2013. He returned that franchise to its nasty, scary roots so I'm confident he can do the same for 'Alien'. I am even more confident he can deliver a film better than most of the nonsense that's come before.
Thoughts After 1st Viewing (No Spoilers): I liked it... I Loved most of it. I need to see it again to analyze how I feel about the rest of it. I can confidently say it's my 3rd favorite 'Alien' film. I do think Fede did for 'Alien' what he did for 'Evil Dead'. He returned it to its intense horror roots while kind of playing the greatest hits from the whole series, but he still adds his own original elements.
The cast is really great, I quite like Cailee Spaeny. I was looking forward to her in this and she didn't disappoint. David Johnsson as Andy might be my favorite Android performance in an 'Alien' film to date. This film also shows you can include a really interesting Android subplot without it feeling detached from the main plot. Also, a shout out to Isabela Merced, she's way better than her Madame Web performance would suggest. This crew also has quite an interesting dynamic that is a bit different than the crews in past films. I told my brother this was the first crew where each of the characters actually care for each other a bit. He then reminded me that 'Alien: Covenant' had a crew of Married Couples, which shows how forgettable that film was and how little charisma and chemistry that cast had especially compared to the group in 'Romulus'.
I also have to mention the Space effects, they're spectacular and capture the viewers' attention immediately since the film uses mostly practical effects. There is one big CGI effect that I expect will be pretty divisive but it's the weakest effect in the film but I got used to it eventually. There's also a huge Practical Effect that I suspect will be Very divisive in its design and even its existence at all, and is where I struggle with this movie most. Trying to remain spoiler free but the film does things that some of the sequels did, that I hated, but I think Romulus may have done it a little better, but I don't know it was good enough to hold up and not to bug me. In my second viewing I think I'll enjoy it more because I'll know what to expect and try and remove the residual bad feelings from those other films so it won't affect how I feel as much about this one. I'll have to let you know where I land after my Second Viewing.
Fast Forward One Week Later!
Thoughts After 2nd Viewing (Spoilers): Unfortunately I liked it less this time around and to explain I'll have to get into Spoilers. I never expected or wanted this movie to acknowledge 'Prometheus' and 'Covenant' let alone be a straight up continuation, but it very much is. This bums me out because this could've been a great standalone story that doesn't require homework for the general audience. It makes me wonder if that's how they got Ridley Scott to produce this after canceling his planned follow-up to 'Covenant'. How much of that did he insist on including just to continue his dumb-ass story? This element, specifically the Black Goo from those movies is what leads to the other piece of the film I don't like which is the Xenomorph/Human hybrid creature at the end.
First off, knowing Fede Alvarez was directing this and having seen his other films 'Evil Dead' & 'Don't Breath' I suspected he might get weird with the female anatomy in this movie and then we're introduced to a pregnant character and I thought "oh yeah he's going do something weird with that" and he did! I honestly think he was trying to outdo the cesarean scene in 'Prometheus' and I guess he succeeded. Second, who cares about a Xenomorph/Human hybrid!? It is Never more interesting or scarier than just the regular Xenomorph. Why are we doing this again!? The fight itself is decent but the idea behind it and the design of the creature really doesn't do anything for me. And it sucks because two thirds of this was a really great 'Alien' movie then it got bogged down in all the same ideas that made the sequels terrible. I still feel like this is the third best film in the franchise that I wouldn't dread watching again in the future and over time may even soften up to and accept it more. Who knows but I wouldn't count on it; the stuff I liked, I really liked and I don't think the stuff I didn't ruins the film completely. It's a complicated one last the last few attempts.
BONUS) ALIEN 3: The Audio Drama
This was what I had listened to right before the film and wanted to throw it in goven the timeline and so fresh on my mind. This is basically an alternate take on 'Alien 3' that doesn't kill Hicks and Newt, they are both alive throughout this story. Bishop is also back so they got Michael Bien and Lance Hendrickson to lend their voices to the Audio drama. They didn't get Sigourney Weaver so the story ends up being pretty light on Ripley. She spends most of the time in some kind of healing sleep which didn't make sense to me. What is the point of bringing Hicks and Newt back if Ripley isn't even in the story? Newt even leaves halfway through very uneventfully and never comes back. The woman doing the voice for Ripley does a pretty decent Sigourney so I don't know why they just didn't put her in there more, maybe not interested in the dynamic between all three of the characters?
The story itself just becomes a basic 'Alien' plot in a different location with mostly different people. Nothing really great or interesting happens with the exception of one pretty cool Facehugger scene. They also include Xenomorph/Human hybrids and it doesn't work. I've never liked that idea, I don't see the point. The Xenomorph is scary enough and the process of their birth is intense and gross. Cutting out any of that doesn't improve anything at all and in fact takes away from what could be amazing acting and sounds. All in all this Audio Drama was interesting but I'm not necessarily bummed we didn't get this in film form instead of the 'Alien 3' we did get. I don't know if one is really better than the other at this point. If anything it proves that just keeping Hicks and Newt alive wouldn't have been enough on its own to make the third film better.
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