October may be over, but I have one more horror review for you before I move on to other things. This one comes a little late, but unlike others I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about this movie. I’m talking of course about the latest addition to the Alien franchise “Alien Romulus”. The trailers had some cool visuals but I had my doubts that this would be anything but a less good version of Aliens, updated with a few modern cliches. The movie is from director Fede Alvarez and written by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues. It stars Cailee Spaeny and David Johnson with support from Isabela Merced,
Aliens: Romulus is set between the first two Alien films, which is a little strange on the surface but does fit with the trend of going back to the original movie in these franchises. What is unusual here is it’s not a retcon sequel, everything else is still canon. The story follows colonist Rain Carradine and her friends as they attempt to escape their apparent indentured servitude to the Weyland-Yatani company at a mining colony. To do this their plan is to break into an abandoned space station that is orbiting the planet and steal the left pods so they can utilize their cryo sleep capsules and reach another colony. Unfortunately for them the space station was abandoned for good reason as this outpost has been used to experiment on the infamous Xenomorphs.
In Space No One Can Hear Your Callbacks
I predicted what this film was going to be back when it was first announced. That is basically the same as “Prey” (2022) but for the Alien franchise. A watered down less good version of the movies that worked with endless references from those better movies put in simply for the sake of it. Not a bad movie as such. but it’s like watching a tribute band perform the greatest hits of your favourite artist. The music is good, but given the choice I’d always rather watch the real thing. That’s the difference between tribute bands and this kind of safe overly meta sequel movie, you can’t always see your favourite band. You can however always see your favourite movie. So movies like Prey and Romulus are things you watch once and then go back to only re-watching the first two movies as you have been for decades.
What I didn’t realize was just how much of a greatest hits Romulus would be. It doesn’t just reference the first two movies, it throws callbacks to the more divisive ones. When it does reference the first two movies it lays it on so thick it takes you out of it. This is the very definition of “‘Member Berries”. It is not “Nostalgia done right”, these things are shoehorned in. Actually the elements from the divisive movies are actually done better than the ones from Alien/Aliens, because they do service the plot. This is not a movie created to do something new or interesting with the franchise, it is one designed to get bums on seats in the theatre with little care for if anyone will remember the movie in five years time.
Alien Queens Greatest Hits Vol 2
Nostalgia bait is one thing. But what about the movie in it’s own right? Well, on the positive the music and the sound design are fantastic. I really did enjoy both those elements. Indeed the only callbacks to older movies I liked were the musical ones. Visually the film is mostly good. I say mostly because there is one bit of horrendous CGI. Naturally, this is tied to the pointless nostalgia call backs. The characters inclusion is itself a dumb and lazy plot element but the CGI just makes it embarrassing. Unfortunately, the character is in the film throughout. One of the worst callbacks to past movies includes a particular type of Alien. While the concept is still bad, I think this version looks marginally better.
The characters are a strong weakness for this movie too. Indeed these are just the dregs from an overly dystopian colony that is typical of the unimaginative modern view of the future. In Alien and Aliens while the company had nefarious goals, there was no indication that this film was set in a dystopian future. The crew of the Nostromo were just blue collar working Joes/Janes. They weren’t oppressed, they just weren’t pampered. Romulus though launches us instantly to a universe where the company effectively has slaves, who have no control over their destiny. The Company meanwhile have moved on from nefarious to full mustache twirling villainy. That makes the universe no longer feel real. The characters themselves have no real background to pull from and so feel generic outside of Andy the android and he’s not that much better.
Conclusion
Ultimately this is a movie that does nothing for the franchise. It is pretty, it is loud. Indeed one may say it is full of sound and fury yet ultimately signifying nothing. It has an extreme deficit of creativity and relies on nostalgia and callbacks. I originally thought this would be like Prey, but in many ways it’s more like “Terminator: Dark Fate”. It’s nowhere near as bad, nor does it remove the older films from canon. It does however repeat the same mistakes from those movies that derailed the franchise previously. That said, I did enjoy Romulus more than Prey (Or Dark Fate). That is mostly due to the visuals, sound design and music. It’s not a strong entry in the franchise, but it makes a reasonable popcorn movie. This is a 5.5/10.
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