Hi folks, first time poster so let me know if this kinda post belongs anywhere else. Just saw alien romulus and wanted to see others thoughts on the movie :-).
Personally the visuals were great and the xenomorph itself terrifying but I didn’t care much for the story and the characters seemed a little 2dimensional. I also think it drifted a little away from the fear factor to shock. I’d say 6/10. Enjoyable watch but nothing special.
Saw it with my partner on Friday.
My review:
There was so much fan service that I thought it was a bad Tumblr fanfic and wish I had pirated it.
Fan service spoilers, general complaints, not in order
- Andy the android. Seriously? How lazy.
- Rook? Ash? Rook in Dutch is “smoke”, give me a break! Also that CG face was abysmal! I’ve seen better deepfake videos.
- How the hell does the Company find Nostromo in the middle of space after it blew up in all directions at an unknown location? Stuff keeps moving outward in space and space is infinite… To even figure out where it would be their physicists would have had to pinpoint the original site of the explosion, where the explosion took place on the ship, how much outward force the explosion exerted on the ship, and the exact date and time of the explosion. In the middle of fucking space.
- The mouse/rat giving “birth” was a terrible callback to 3 with the dog or cow, depending on the cut.
- Trying to blow the Xeno out of a hole in glass… C’mon!
- Humanoid birth (Alien 4) that looks like an Engineer (Prometheus), coming out of a human…
- Xeno breathing down Rain’s neck
- Andy sounding like David when inserting the module
- Andy and Rook continuing the terrible trope that every single android has referred to it as “the perfect organism”
- Face huggers swimming, a bad callback to 4
- Do NOT get me started on how convenient it was that the ship flew into the cargo bay when the pilot lost control
- The cryosleep fluid makes no sense and retcons 2. If Ripley was out for as long as she was between 1 and 2, then how many canisters were on her EEV?!?! What about between 2 and 3?!
- Rain stepping out of the lift with the gun was a shot for shot remake of 2
- Andy crying when being left behind, a callback to David, unless hes one of the original David models with a new skin? Lazy writing either way
- Stay away from her… BITCH 🤮
- The acid kill retcons 4. One drop goes completely through the guy’s leg, while in 4 it only burns the skin slightly.
- The scene where Rain blew away the Xenos when gravity was off was a callback to 2 with the turrets in the tunnel, down to having several rounds left after they’re all gone
- Rain entering the mission in the ship’s log at the end. Does she even have any formal training there?
- Since when are planetary rings solid? And since when does a vessel the size of a large city turn into shredded cheese when scraping against a bunch of space ice?
- Flashing runway lights, a direct callback to all of the other ones
hidden content
There’s more but these are enough to get the point across. I think it would have been a better film if it tried to be its own film and not reference every single iconic scene from the previous installations. At least they kept the technology and set painting consistent this time, unlike Prometheus…
Based on your comment, I assume the script was written by AI.
Oh I didn’t even think about that. It would explain so much.
- The acid kill retcons 4. One drop goes completely through the guy’s leg, while in 4 it only burns the skin slightly.
That seems more like a 4 problem.
Look at the OG acid scene from Alien:
You’re right, my mistake! 4 was also not good lol
Acid never follows reality in fiction anyway, I’m mostly fine with it just being whatever it needs to be to make the plot work
Seeing this tomorrow but the RLM review was damning. Apparently it starts extremely promising and then tails off.
I’ll wait to make up my own mind. I like all of the original 4 in their own way (Alien 3 is my least favourite). Also appreciated - but didn’t love - the prequels. This sounds like a mixture of everything from the IP so far.
Will edit this comment once I’ve seen it tomorrow evening.
Edit: First half was great, second half was fan servicey but overall good. Biggest pet peeve was that the black goo worked differently than had been established in prometheus.
I actually preferred 3 to 4 after watching them recently. 3 brought back the feeling of the original, where everyone is unarmed against a vicious predator. 4 isn’t bad, but it feels like a more significant departure from the other movies than 3.
I have several friends that share your opinion about Alien 3. One of them thinks it’s a misunderstood masterpiece. Quite enjoy discussing it even though I disagree!
There was a third Alien movie?
Depending on how you count them… this is the 9th(!)
Alien
Aliens
Alien^3
Alien: ResurrectionAlien vs. Predator
Alien vs. Predator 2 - not the real name, I just can’t be arsed to look it up.Prometheus
Prometheus 2 - Same.Alien: Romulus
The Prometheus sequel was Alien: Covenant. Also not a great film.
Alien vs Predator is non-canon (if you can even give this series a “canon” anymore), so I guess the number is either 5, 7, or 9 movies depending on which things you see as part of “the series”.
Anything original is regarded as sacrilege.
Anything referencing the past is boring and repetitive.
For mine, I found this closer to the first Alien movies, and enjoyed it as a break from feeling like the story had to take centre stage. Alien is all about the vibes, creeps and feels. That’s what I enjoyed about this one.
The sound/score was great, though I found some of the score a little delayed and over the top in emphasizing when something had happened “DUM-DUM-DUUUUMMMMMM”
I wasn’t much of the fan of the fast growing baby creature that some have referred to as baby Zuckerberg. Some of that reminded me of Species. Mind you, I’d watch Alien v Species. Or Alien v Thing. Or any combination v Predator.
The callbacks are starting to come across to me as lazy writing. Just repeating stuff from previous movies that ends up filling in time. Good for those that haven’t seen any of the previous movies I guess. I’m OK watching what’s basically a repeat movie once, but don’t do it again.
Seems obvious to me that now we’ve had Alien: Romulus the next is the Alien: Remus prequel.
Enjoyable return to original films:7/10
How does it compare to the others? Specifically the last attempted reboots with the Engineers or Alien Vs. Predator, has to be better, right?
Full disclosure haven’t seen the originals (or maybe I did but was too young to remember). I’d say it’s worse than prometheus or covenant (covenant being my favourite although I hated the story jump from prometheus). It seemed to be trying to be it’s own thing with it’s own cast, own planet and own character motivations but it also kept pulling in things from the other movies to fail at building something unique. It also doesn’t answer any questions from the previous movies :/.
Honestly, do yourself a favor and watch the OG Alien from start to finish with no distractions. Then do the same with Aliens as well. Those two are masterpieces with Aliens being much different in tone. Every sequel or prequel made afterward tried to rekindle the fire/brilliance of those two. Unfortunately Alien was made worse by the later films where the Xenomorphs origin is basically explained as human in origin (caused by humans). So pretend that you didn’t see any movie from the franchise and try to be “fresh”.
Every modern movie… If it leaves open-ended questions at the end of the first movie, they are NEVER being answered. They will be hinted at and dragged through a million sequels before they are completely abandoned with zero closure.
It’s not about art or storytelling. It’s simply a process of extracting money from consumers invested in the franchise.
