Alien: Romulus Review

        This is the first time that I’ve reviewed a horror centric series. To say that it was easy, well, I spaced the first two out that it made sense to talk about the rest of them. When marathoning the sequels, it’s so clear to see what went wrong. It’s practically indicative of what Hollywood is, from studio interference to questionable director choices, the whole series went through the ringer of somewhat being alive when it was seemingly dead. And it all leads to a sequel, one could say that nobody was asking for it. Even I was hesitant, despite having a good director helming the sequel. After watching the film a second time, this is what I think. 

1. Friends in Search of a Better Home

        2024 I think is one of the best years in horror. If you’ve read my review of The Substance, I made note that a prequel and a sequel were on the list of the best horror films. Obviously, this is one of the best sequels and probably 3rd best. Considering what came before, the bar was literally on the ground and it managed to do something different by walking over it. On another note, I feel that last year was also a tribute to 20th Century Fox. Most of their beloved franchises were granted a new boost in relevancy through the power of Disney. While some consider it to be an easy cash grab, they at least delivered on what was expected. 

        This time around, the film takes place between the first two Alien films. We follow some colonists named Rain and Andy. The latter being an android, Rain is attempting to leave her colony to have a better life. And I just love how the first instant we see her, she’s totally calm in her dream and then hard cut to where she really is. If there’s one thing that was missing from the prior entries, was just the brutal aura and corporate monsters known as Weyland-Yutani. They have a much bigger presence here than just have the usual suits running around. 

        While we’ll talk about them more, Rain is joined by her friends to escape their colony after being told that their work quotas have since doubled. Now the whole premise is relatable when you think about it. All of them want to have a better life, and by doing that they manage to find an abandoned space station. If you haven’t read the prior reviews this month, well, it all goes completely wrong. 

        So, there’s a lot to digest and talk about in this movie. For one thing, it’s all straightforward as you can get. They all raid the station to get to where they’re going. Unintentionally, they walk into a lab where the company have been experimenting on the Xenomorph and that’s when the proverbial acid lands on the floor and starts to descend further. I love how horror slowly works it way where it’s a survival film. So much so that it’s not just the aliens that the main characters have to worry about. This is probably the only time where we see the company be almost cruel with how it treats the characters. 

        Or in this case, the on-site android that talks to the characters. Obviously modeled after Sir Ian Holmes’ Ash from the first film, Rook is sinisterly duplicitous like the android that we see. I think what makes him dang nasty bad is that he’s the face of the company. What he wants is the survival of one experiment that the company has created, while everybody else is expendable through the eyes of the corporate monster. It’s one of those things where I must commend the director with really leaning into that side where we get tiny glimpses of the company. In an age that is maybe leaning that way, we truly see just how prideful the company is represented. 

2. Fede Alvarez

        So this is the first film that I’ve seen of Fede Alvarez. He made his name by making a remake of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead film back in 2013. From there, he made an original film with Don’t Breathe. With his work on the remake, it made sense to give him a decent budget with this film. To me, it paid off so well since he really honors the original and the series as a whole. While some have complaints that the film references too much of the past films, to the point that some shots and phrases were used. I think it works in a good way since it’s basically a love letter to the franchise. 

        The whole ambiance of the world and space station that Alvarez presents is really something to behold. None of it was green screened in the least bit. And there were moments where it just added to the layer of dread that we’re anticipating and just want to move along faster. One moment just sells what we’re in for. It’s in the beginning scene when we see the company find the alien that Ripley blasted in the first film. We see that scientists surround the hardened body like it’s a religious ceremony. I think it’s an homage to 2001, but more than anything it shows how the company unleashed a monster.

        As I mentioned earlier, I’m glad that Alvarez really emphasized more of the company by showing them just how cruel they are. Past films portrayed Weyland-Yutani as an unfeeling company, whose interests were their own and deeming any life as secondary to their main objective. It’s refreshing to see them finally get their prized alien, only for it to slaughter everyone. More so that we finally get some closure to one of the plot points from Ridley Scott’s prior two films. I was rolling my eyes when I saw that the black ooze from before finally appeared. The way they went about it impressed me and the final alien variant. Oh, man. 

        I don’t want to give too much away, since this is a great horror movie. The final moments is one of the unexpected surprises that legitimately scared me. And it’s really something where Alvarez defended his inclusion of this alien variant that the people over in Disney were not too kosher about it. I’m glad that he stuck to his guns and showed us this surprising thing. Just it’s whole evolution was grotesque and so off putting. I really wonder if Ridley Scott had a hand in it or Alvarez really saw the potential when having to include the black ooze in his story. 

        So that about covers the Alien franchise. It was a roller coaster with marathoning the sequels and watching it from their lowest point to their descent and relatively great entries. More than anything, it’s a franchise that keeps going and I feel that without the main star such as Ellen Ripley, the whole franchise can go in either direction. Specifically, it’s one of those rare franchises where it can capitalize on the singular horror element or be action-horror. Just the titles of Alien and Aliens give the franchise a lot of leeway with what it wants to do next. 

3. Overall

        Alien: Romulus gives the franchise a needed boost in life. It’s one of the best horror films of last year and a great entry to a beloved franchise. 

Alien: Covenant Review

        We’re almost done with looking at the Alien franchise. So far, it’s one thing to see it try to anchor the series on Ripley. The result is two disastrous entries to end her story and send the series into a temporary limbo. To prop up the series again, Ridley Scott tries to do an origin of the species itself. While I made my opinion on Prometheus, it made enough money in the box office to warrant a follow-up. With the new direction, it made sense to continue with the engineer storyline and why they would create and end humanity. All of that is thrown out with Alien: Covenant. 

1. Paradise Lost

        Before bearing the subtitle Covenant, the sequel was going to be called Paradise Lost. Continuing the plot thread of Elizabeth and David as they try to find the engineers. Of course, none of that is followed up. Well, it is but I’ll explain later. This is probably the one time where the filmmaker made a film in response to the last one. Since Prometheus lacked Xenomorphs, now we have one. And adding the detail that the engineers in this one are dead as well. I’m getting ahead of myself where it’s an even more conflicting film. One that is right in the middle between tolerable and bad. 

        We follow a new Weyland-Yutani colony ship as they cruise to their new planet. A random intergalactic event wreaks havoc as the ship is partially damaged. As the crew fixes the ship, they receive an old radio transmission and trace it back to a habitable world. I could give away the whole film right then and there but, those days are done. So, we have a new cast that we follow aboard the Covenant and keeping with Alien tradition we have a new lead. 

        If there’s one thing where I do like is that I like Daniels. I love her character and to me, she’s the only smart one out of everybody. I like how she’s levelheaded and clearly see just how questionable the new planet that they’re detouring to. I think she’s probably a close second to Ripley as far as having someone competent in a world where there’s a huge level conspiracy involving the company. Not to besmirch on the other cast since they did good with what they got, but I feel that as big as the crew is. None of them made me want to care since we can only assume that a majority of them will get axed. 

        If there’s one thing that I didn’t talk about is the seemingly stupidity of the cast. This is a recurring thing that I didn’t mention when talking about Prometheus is that everyone acts dumb for the sake of the story. What I mean by that is they do stuff that practically sets up their doom or advances the story where it must go. There are ways to go about it. The best route as seen in the first two films is that the company dictates where the crew is going. What makes it work is that Ripley is the smart one out of everyone, but they are merely going with what the company computer is telling them. 

        The bad way is doing it since the story has to go where it must go. It’s what I call autopilot or the characters being passive where the story continues without anyone taking an active direction. Like, they go to the planet because it is habitable but of course, the fact that there’s no life and where there’s an unknown creepy vibe to it should have rung multiple alarms. I think everyone lost their mind when seeing two of the crew members get infected by a pathogen. The spore enters through an opening like an ear and mouth, but it carries over from the black goo from the prior film. 

        Thinking about the film and putting it into words is slowly making me upset. It’s like it has these executions that are compounding each other, but I must give credit to the level of violence that is on display. This is probably the most brutal an Alien film that I have seen. Watching it again, it’s just gruesome with how the deaths are presented. This is the only one where the body count is massive and many of them aren’t from the aliens in question. We get a brand-new variation called the Neomorphs. They’re albino looking and way more feral as they claw and eat their prey. 

        And that’s basically it since we see very little of them since we only see two of the Neomorphs. The next tab is where I highlight most of the problems in the film, but this is one of the reasons why the movie swung so hard. I would’ve liked to see the variants instead of going back to the Xenomorph. More so that with each succeeding films prior to this one, the main variant worked its way to near the end of the film. And seeing how it’s a ferocious creature would’ve made it more brutal than what we got. 

2. Creation: Missed Opportunities

        As I mentioned earlier, the film was supposed to be a continuation of Elizabeth’s and David’s story to find the Engineers. Until Ridley Scott decided to tell another story and then work around the Prometheus story line. To me, it feels so off seeing two storylines try to weave something that is coherent where any random person can follow what’s going on. The whole movie is just a wasted opportunity and a huge feedback film in the worst possible way. 

        I call it a feedback film because it drops the initial storyline in favor of something that is close to the root of the franchise. While the whole Engineer storyline drew a line in the sand, I’ll at least commend it that it tried to do something different instead of being a basic Alien film. Yes, it probably was going to work its way into how the Xenomorph came to be. How it’s presented in this film is just confounding to me. And it all starts as soon as the movie opens with both David and his creator Weyland. 

        We see Weyland test David, by asking various questions and deeming him as he were his son. We get looks that David is annoyed by Weyland who orders him after he questioned his method to his creators. And that’s what the whole film is about, creation. It’s a different angle than what Prometheus is going for, but the way they went about it to me is just questionable. I don’t understand why they would kill off Shaw off screen. Even showing her cadaver as one of David’s experiments. 

        Most surprising than most was that 20th Century Fox released promo vids that act as a prologue for the characters. Elizabeth’s especially since we hear David’s narration as he appreciates her as they voyage to an Engineer planet. It’s a recurring thing with Ridley Scott’s films where the theatrical cut is inferior while he releases his own cut on home video. This one didn’t get any treatment, but it would have fleshed out more of the details instead of going for a shock factor that feels like a betrayal of what came before. That goes double for the crew getting their own video. We see that James Franco dies in the film, but it’s more of a punch line more than anything else. 

        I feel that more than anything, Michael Fassbender’s performance of playing two androids save the film from being total garbage. He plays the new android named Walter. A deeper voice but is committed to the crew and I like that he forms a bond with Daniels. The conversation between David and Walter is great to see since he is apprehensive of the earlier model that he hesitantly trusts him. Until, it’s revealed that David has gone rampant with his programming that he sees himself as a God. Not to harp on the promo vids again, but it’s a real missed opportunity to not have that detail at work by having Elizabeth go on a tragic path to see it. 

        This would be Ridley Scott’s last active involvement with the Alien franchise. He inevitable would have a hand in the following sequel, but this would be the last one where he had total control of where the story was going. Due to how it turned out, it’s the lowest grossing entry in the franchise. And much like the first gap in the franchise, the series was dormant. The only thing that kept it going was the video games that came out. I haven’t tried them since I’m a scaredy cat when it comes to horror video games. One of them specifically would serve as an inspiration for the next entry. 

3. Overall

        Alien: Covenant is one of the most disappointing sequels in the franchise. There are bright spots, but the glaring issues blind the film from being competent. 

Prometheus Review

        Between 1998 and 2012, the whole franchise was dormant. Ridley Scott had already accumulated a filmography that has grown beyond his beloved horror film. He’s been tolerable with his output and finally joined a group of directors to have one of his films win the Best Picture nomination. Word on a 5th Alien film was starting and their intention was that it was going to be a remake. It made sense to have Scott rejoin the franchise and instead make a prequel to the franchise. To say that it’s a prequel is inaccurate since it doesn’t lead up to the debut film. More like a story before the first one.

1. Meeting our Makers

        When I first watched the trailer, I thought it would be  interesting sci-fi film. Mind you, I was not aware of the Alien connection at all since I haven’t watched either of them. This film is my first exposure to the franchise. And you can imagine the level of hype that it got since a lot of people and fans were wanting some answers when Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo descended onto LV-426 and saw the massive dead aliens on the ship. When it came out, I liked it since I treated it as a regular sci-fi film with no strings to the overall franchise. While watching the prior entries, my like inevitability changed. 

        I think I’m getting ahead of myself when talking about why this is a complicated film. I’ll try to go at the angles where this film has its positives and the very glaring issues. Basically, the film is straightforward, we follow archeologists Elizabeth and her boyfriend Charlie discover an old Scottish cave drawing of humanoid beings pointing to a specific star cluster. From there, we follow the duo and the scientists involved in the expedition to find out who created humanity. Seeing that this is a horror film, it all goes wrong but I digress. 

        I will say that as a sci-fi film that has tiny bits of existentialism, it’s not bad. For one thing, I love how the mission is framed to find out who created us and to see if there’s a way that death can be defied. We see how eager Elizabeth is when she discovers the unnatural structures and just wants to find some specimen to study. Noomi Rapace does a good job of portraying the archeologist. We get a reasoning of why she does it since her faith is tied into it. Among everyone in the mission, she’s the only one that wears a cross and the whole mission is personal. It’s established that she lost her dad and she wonders where people go when they die when she was younger. 

        Cast wise, it’s a good ensemble of characters since the others have small roles but are well rounded enough where there’s not a token to be had. While I’ll talk about another character in a moment, I will say that the movie moves at a good pace. None of it feels like a slow burn due to the philosophical nature of it. More so, what they do inside of the alien structure practically causes the story to move. It’s the fact that they altered it already spelled out their doom and I like how they went about it. 

        Might as well talk about the horror elements, it’s the level of violence where it’s not exaggerated to a ridiculous degree but one where it’s played mostly straight. There’s one scene where people hate and it’s when two scientists discover a mutated worm that has been altered by the black ooze. I’ll talk about that too don’t you worry. Mostly the thing with the two scientists is that they get lost and try to see if the thing is harmless, which bites them or breaks the arm of one of the scientists. 

        This other moment is when Elizabeth has been impregnated by Charlie who was poisoned by ingesting the black ooze. That whole scene is practically my favorite highlight of the whole film. The whole ordeal is shown as we see Elizabeth use the machine to practically abort this thing. Like, we see close ups of the C-Section and it’s just gruesome how she’s standing with stitches in her abdomen. The alien or trilobite is just freaky when it’s small but so disgusting when it grows up. 

        I feel that a missed opportunity occurs when the crew sees holographic recordings of the engineers inside the structure. This is just me but I wish that the film started out with them instead of the unnamed Engineer in a distant planet. Having us see what they were running away from and causing their own demise would’ve been a better start to the film and they have that dramatic irony where the main cast are walking, not knowing what’s beyond them may kill them. 

2. David

        Michael Fassbender steals the whole movie. There’s no other way around it. The whole 2010s is when he put himself out there more with the films he appeared in. My first exposure to him is when he portrayed Magneto in X-Men: First Class. From there, he was in select films from Fox Searchlight and in Ridley Scott’s next film after this one. Obviously, since this is an Alien film, there must be another android where we don’t know if he is a good guy or has ulterior motives. A majority of the time it’s always the latter.

        I like the whole montage where he does learn an ancient language and shooting a basketball on a bike. I think Scott had watched Resurrection and saw Sigourney Weaver shoot the ball behind her back and decided to one up that. One detail that is interesting is that he watches Lawrence of Arabia, so much so that he styles his hair like Peter O’Toole’s character. More so quotes the film in some instances. What makes him interesting like the androids before him is that he has an ulterior motive. Like the character in the other film, he’s mostly an outsider and is practically alien among the other crew members.

        Since the main cast are there trying to find the creators, David becomes inquisitive with the environment. He triggers the holographic displays that show the engineers running away. Just his actions move the plot forward where he decides to test out the black ooze that’s spotted near a shrine. It makes him full of duplicity where he uses the liquid to see what it does. I love the whole conversation between David and Charlie. It’s mostly a talk where David asks why they made him to which Charlie said because they could. It all leads up with the android asking the scientist how much he’s willing to sacrifice to discover what he wants.  

        One thing I will say that is the best moment involving David is when he’s in the cockpit of the ship. He triggers another holographic display which shows the Engineers preparing for takeoff. All of it is great with the holographs and the sweeping music, like seeing David seeing it all and basking in it is like it’s an information nirvana. This is just an observation but there’s a level of irony where the music is swooning and we see these creatures going about their day which is menial by observation. Speaking of Engineers, this is probably the most controversial and detrimental thing to the whole movie. 

3. Demystification: Complicated Legacy

        What made the first Alien great aside from the xenomorph, was just seeing the alien world be deserted and seeing the space jockey showed us that there was life beyond Earth. All of it is just great scenery and leads to a lot of people having questions. Or just random ideas where no one really had an answer until now. I feel that any prequel that involves this kind of small detail isn’t really warranted since it undoes the whole mystery. More so that, the whole film isn’t really a prequel by any means. 

        What I mean by that is one would think that this film is a prequel since we see the ship crashed in the same way that we see it in the debut film. Although, this film takes place in an entirely different planet than LV-426. The planet where it all takes place is the next one over. More so that all of it is so esoteric where when they’re in the statue room, there’s a mural that has a xenomorph among other things. It seemed like it’s set up for the next film, but none of it is explained. 

        To me, this is the film’s biggest problem. While there’s questions where they are answered, there’s even more questions added. It’s clear that when you remove the film from the mainline Alien franchise, it’s a good film independently speaking. When it’s part of the whole franchise, there’s no connective tissue on the whole franchise aside from Weyland having ties to it. Additionally, this film is used heavily in some philosophy classes. One of them has David in the cover in one of the books needed. 

        I feel that the philosophy angle is so half baked that the whole film isn’t really that deep. Yes, it is philosophically interesting to find out the who’s and the why’s of our existence. But at the end of the day, the whole thing is about concepts. What’s more important more than anything is the execution of the concepts. When you have multiple articles explaining what the whole film is about on a deeper level, I feel that the movie really failed to be able to stand on its own. For a good film, you don’t need articles to explain a point of view to change the reception. 

        One more thing, I forgot to talk about the mascot of the whole series. It’s not technically a xenomorph, but another variant that we see. Dubbed the Deacon, this thing is radically different from the others that we’ve seen. I feel that it’s appropriate to have it appear in the literal final seconds of the film. Almost like if Scott had literally forgot about the lack of aliens and decided to put one to meet some quota. It feels tacked on, since the following film doesn’t bring up Deacon again.

4. Overall

        Prometheus is an interesting film in the franchise, flawed but a decent film when separated with it’s companions. 

Alien: Resurrection

        After the disaster that was Alien 3, it almost seemed that the franchise ended on bad terms. There seemingly was no way to continue the series and bringing back Ripley since we saw her jump to her death. In one way, the studio wanted a do over and to clean up their own mess up by properly ending the series once more. What better subtitle than Resurrection to slap on the sequel. It’s practically a first warning of just how far the franchise was willing to try anything to be interesting. 

1. Somehow Ripley Returned

        I think in one way to have the series continue is to have it take place so far into the future where it’s basically a clean slate. Gone is Weyland-Yutani and in comes the next questionable organization the United Military Systems. The whole film starts as they successfully cloned a brand new Ripley after eight tries. They removed the queen embryo from her chest so they can begin what the Weyland company had been trying to do. Predictably, it all goes wrong. 

        There’s new characters that we see but I’ll talk about them in a moment. It really feels that they can never leave Ripley in a good place, or just try to do something different without having to bring her back through some convoluted scientific way. That’s probably my biggest gripe whenever a sequel comes along and tries to make a story happen and undoing any sense of closure that the prior entry had. The film does at least explain that the scientists did find some left over DNA of Ripley, but it’s one of those things where seeing it is better than being told about it. 

        And this is a completely different Ripley that we see. She is taught some things and what is interesting is that while she is a clone, she contains some Xenomorph DNA as her blood is acidic. Her whole introduction is weird as we see her in a transparent plastic tarp as she “births” out. It’s very artsy fartsy and there are moments where there’s weird close ups and it’s very French in some areas. It’s weird that Fox hired Jean-Pierre Jeunet to helm this one. I haven’t seen his films to give me an indication that his prior work matched what this Alien film was going for. Although, his film after this Amelie is highly regarded. It always seemed that after a bad Alien film, the director’s next film becomes a classic. 

        As I mentioned earlier, we got a new motley crew of characters that are only Alien fodder. We see the scientists and military for the USM. They are just stereotypical characters where they breed new Xenomorphs only to study them. And of course we have the rebellious mercenaries. Ron Perlman as the leader of the mercs followed by Winona Ryder who portrays the new android in the series. I feel that with this big cast, it can get crowded since it doesn’t help the movie with its tone. Like, it’s all over the place as far as getting invested or just cringe inducing. 

        To elaborate on that, there’s some seemingly comedic moments where it’s not supposed to be comedic. One instance is when one of the scientists is testing the Alien, he tries to bond by kissing the glass but immediately punishes it by trying to freeze it. We see him again as he part of the brood and he just eats the scenery as far as acting. That’s the main thing with this film where it doesn’t really know what to do with these characters but to kill them progressively. The mercs get put through the ringer but there’s never a moment where Ripley takes charge. 

        I feel that is where the movie fails, Ripley doesn’t take the lead since the crew does everything where it’s basically on autopilot. The android Call knows a lot about Ripley but doesn’t really help assuage Ripley’s distrust of androids. They do bond, but it’s only to progress the escape without legitimately bonding. It’s doesn’t quite match the same type of bonding as Ripley and Newt from Aliens. More than anything, the film is just a huge retread of the prior films. 

2. Greatest Hits

        People complain that the recent release of Alien: Romulus is just another retread of what came out in the past. While there is some validity in that assessment, I feel that people don’t realize how much of this film basically crams in the same iconography of the prior films into this one. In one way, they couldn’t quite nail the same beats without doing the exact same thing visually. Just the way the film looks harkens back to the Ridley Scott classic. With the claustrophobic hallways, and the few shots of space where it’s very reminiscent of the first film. 

        I feel that in one way, this is the first greatest hits of the film where it references the past films so egregiously. And what compounds it is that the film is an action-oriented one. Guns blazing without the sense of suspense since there’s no motion trackers or have it shot where the threats can pop up anywhere. More so that, there’s moments where it tried to be different such as the underwater scene and when we see the new Xenomorph variant. That thing is freaky, but it’s hilarious that it only appears in the final moments of the film. 

        One thing that I will commend the series is that they finally give Ripley some peace as the film ends. Of course, a retread where she finally can rest after surviving but one where she can finally start her life anew on Earth. This for the moment is the last time as we follow Ripley in her adventures. She’s the anchor to the whole series, and one of the defining heroines in cinema. I feel that her whole character evolution is really something as she has urgency and manages to take charge to survive. 

3. "Alien vs Predator"

        I haven’t mentioned the spinoff involving the two characters when discussing the first two Alien films. It only made sense that two of 20th Century Fox’s horror mascots would face off each other in various media. Since I’m not covering this spin off as the two films aren’t canon with the mainline Alien and Predator films, I’ll at least acknowledge their impact since that’s how I was introduced to the aliens. The spinoff did start as a comic book series that ventured off into the video game sphere. 

        The first direct acknowledgement of each other in film is in Predator 2. The Xenomorph skull appears alongside the collection of skulls in the Predator ship. Seemingly confirming that the two franchises are connected someway, albeit years and millennia apart. The 2000s is when Fox decided to adapt the series into film, and it was bad. Broadening the appeal for a PG-13 rating did no favors. They were my first exposure to the creatures, but watching itis basically a neutered take of what could’ve been an R-rated venture. 

        They rectified that by releasing a sequel and obviously emphasizing the rating to attract the more hardcore fans, and it didn’t fare much better. With the recent success and resurgence of the two franchises, there’s been talks of Disney trying to restart the spinoff franchise once more. All of it is just speculation, but it’s an easy task to fail when trying to portray two species duke it out as far as having a hunter and prey angle to it. As well as having the human element being the ultimate gamble of making or breaking the film. 

4. Overall

        Alien: Resurrection is yet another bad end to the franchise and one of the worst sequels to end a beloved franchise.