Tag: sci-fi horror

Alien: Romulus (2024)

Posted on by fenrisfil

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.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

The Puppet Masters (1994)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Over the years there have been many versions of the alien body snatcher idea. The 1951 Robert Heinlein novel “The Puppet Masters”, may well be the earliest entry in this sub-genre. However the movie adaptation comes very late to the party following in the footsteps of three versions of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1953, 1978 and 1993) and two versions of “Invaders From Mars” (1953 and 1986). There have also been a number of tangentially similar films such as “The Thing” (1982), “The Hidden” (1987) and “Night of the Creeps” (1986). On top of this both Star Trek and The Outer Limits produced episodes based on Heinlein’s story. Even Roger Corman ripped it off for “The Brain Eaters” (1958) and was sued by Heinlein as a result. All that considered, it is strange it took so long for a direct adaptation.

The Puppet Masters was somewhat of a passion project for Michael Engelberg. The producer had been pushing for the film to enter production since the mid eighties. He was assisted by his long term friend and Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Disney didn’t have a lot of experience with this kind of film however, as a result production was a tad bumpy. The script ended up with countless re-writes, two competing scripts were being developed simultaneously at one point. Directors were hired, minds changed, a third new script was developed and then finally a variation of the original script when to filming with a whole lot of compromise.

Invaders From Space

The Puppet Masters is directed by Stuart Orme. A strange choice given his career until that point was mostly directing made-for-TV movies (And still is). The screenplay was provided by by a combination of David Goyer, Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott. Eric Thal stars as “Sam Nivens”, Donald Sutherland as his father “Andrew” who runs a special branch of the CIA that deal with extraterrestrial activity and Julie Warner as xenobiologist “Mary Sefton”.

The team are called in to examine a site where a UFO is suspected of landing near a small town. When they arrive they quickly determine something is up with the inhabitants of this town and after a confrontation with one realise they are being controlled by an alien lifeform. What follows is a tactical battle between the two sides. The invaders do their best to take over key personnel while the humans try to detect the invaders, figure out what they want and most importantly find a way to kill them without killing their hosts.

Stars And Slugs

Coming as late to the pod party as this movie does has left it in a difficult position. Trying to repackage the original body snatching story to appear fresh and unique in a sea of similar stories that came after the original novel is a difficult ask. It’s most obvious imitator “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” already re-invented itself twice and the second version of that story from 1978 is still regarded as the gold standard for the theme. The earlier 1953 movie was no slouch either. Both versions pushed the fear and paranoia to the extreme. Puppet Masters is more focused on the bigger picture, than on individual characters. This is more about the war between the humans and the space slugs, instead of the paranoia of the individuals. The result is interesting, but not especially compelling.

The cast is a relatively strong one, with the big name unfortunately being Donald Sutherland. A fantastic actor for sure, but unfortunate because he was also in the 70’s Bodysnatchers movie and as I mentioned, that is the gold standard. There was no possible way that this film wouldn’t be constantly compared to the 1978 classic with Sutherland being the face of both. His performance in the film is good, as you’d expect. But since he isn’t the lead, he is largely wasted. All his inclusion does is lead to harsh comparisons with a better movie. The actual lead is Eric Thal (When he’s not being controlled by space slugs) who puts in a solid performance. Keith David and Julie Warner are pretty good too. It’s not the acting that lets this one down.

Bad Adaptation

This is a film made out of compromises, resulting in a final product that probably didn’t please anyone involved. It’s not a fair reflection of Heinlein’s novel, it’s not that different to the various other body snatcher films it doesn’t really offer any great moments. While the screenplay gave up most of the cool moments from the novel to executive pressure, the director Stuart Orme failed to make anything that remained at all memorable. The movie is all bland and dry. There is a reason he went right back to made-for-TV movies after. The cast do their best and there are elements of the plot that are interesting but none that really make it compelling.

It’s a real shame, but that’s Hollywood. Maybe one day someone will make a better adaptation. For now we just have this. It is conceptually interesting in places, but nothing in the film really stands out and it’s ultimately a movie you’ll have forgotten minutes after watching. This is a solid 5/10. Not a total waste of time, but also not a recommendation. If you want a more fun version of the story on screen, watch the Star Trek episode “Operation — Annihilate!”

Rating: 5 out of 10.