Blog posts typically take me a few hours because I’m just a wordy fella. But today I’m trying something new: lunchtime blog post! I have a meeting at one so let’s get right to it.
There’s a couple of reasons for a review (I can’t help myself from getting off on a tangent in the very second paragraph — even under a time crunch!). One is: should I spend my time and money watching this movie? A second might be: I saw it and thought (X) about it, what did other people think? So let’s just … address those needs right up front.
Should you go to a theater and watch Alien Romulus?
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you like horror?
- Do you like science fiction?
- Did you like “Alien?”
- Did you like “Aliens,” the sequel to “Alien,” more than you liked the first movie in the series?
If you answered “Yes” to all these questions then you will probably enjoy this movie! You should go see it!
If you answered NO to any of the first three questions, you probably won’t like it, and you could skip it or watch it on streaming or whatever.
If you answered yes to the first three and NO to number 4 then, well, you probably won’t like this movie either. Again, skip it or watch it in streaming or whatever.
For the record, my answers to this quiz would be: No, Very Yes, Very Yes, No. And I sort of enjoyed the movie, but on reflection wound up a little disappointed. So now that you know whether you should go or not, let’s enter the spoiler zone and talk about why I was only lukewarm on the film.
Spoilers: What I thought of the film
I am not a horror fan. I have watched some horror and typically don’t enjoy the actual, you know, horror part of movies — the stuff designed just to make people’s skin crawl.
But I LOVE the original Alien. And Alien IS a horror film, but I think what makes it feel different is that the horror isn’t … the driving force in the movie. The goal of the movie is not “Let’s get through all this crap so we can get to the SPOOKS!” It builds a compelling world with sets and performances and sound that just draws you in. And then, AFTER you feel like you know the world, it goes “Also, there’s a terrifying alien running around.”
Alien had things to say. There is commentary about the military/industrial complex, about artificial life, about, you know, what the universe would look like if Walmart is the one that colonizes it.
Alien is a fantastic science fiction movie that is also very scary. But I would want to watch that movie even if there weren’t an alien. If this was a movie about something else, still happening in that universe, I would be into it.
(In my head I started brainstorming other plots that could happen in that first Alien setting with that first cast and there were so many immediately good ideas that I had to go “NO! Lunchtime Blog! Stop this!” So I’m trying to get back on track. I apologize)
Aliens (the sequel) (apocryphally known as Alien$ according to a story about James Cameron’s pitch to make the movie) is not a science fiction movie that is also very scary. It is an action movie that happens to be decently scary that also has science fiction elements. I didn’t enjoy Aliens nearly as much as Alien because the thing I liked (cool sci fi world) was given less focus than the part I didn’t like (scary monsters).
Aliens is a decent film, but I wouldn’t consider it a classic because it wasn’t really breaking ground. Alien was a film that showed a vision of the future unlike any before committed to the screen. Aliens was “What if ‘Alien’ had more aliens and also space marines?” That’s not a bad pitch, but it’s not ground breaking. It’s not doing anything new or particularly interesting with the world.
SO! Alien Romulus is a film set in the Alien universe. It asks the question: “What if Alien, but the ship was bigger and there were WAY more aliens, but teenagers instead of space marines.”
I don’t know if you can tell from my tone when talking about Aliens, but the pitch “The same thing but more and/or slightly different” isn’t a super compelling one. I mean, it’s fine for like … The Mission Impossible series, which were never known for their geopolitical commentary, but as a followup to, you know, a groundbreaking work of art? It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
And when I say “The same thing” I mean LITERALLY the same thing. They bring out the original android (Ian Holm passed away, but don’t worry, they’ll AI up a new Ian Holm for us). They bring out the fun self-aiming guns. They bring out the secret “android is evil” turn partway through the movie (granted, it’s a slightly new spin on the formula, but still). They even brink out the same future Space Reeboks at one point, which just felt gratuitous.
A “legacy sequel” doesn’t have to be that, though. We can actually stick with Ridley Scott joints and talk about, in my opinion, the best attempt at reviving a Ridley Scott Sci Fi Franchise: Blade Runner 2049.
Bladerunner is another Ridley Scott film that showed us a world not yet committed to screen (or whatever I said above, I’ve only got three minutes left!) and it’s another film that didn’t perform great but has become a cult classic. And in 2017 they released Denis Villaneuve’s followup: Blade Runner 2049. A film that built on the existing mythology, but also expanded the world and had a lot to say on its own.
If you watch Blade Runner and then Blade Runner 2049 you see a story that continues and has more to say. If you watch Alien and Alien Romulus what you see is … a solid effort that doesn’t have anything meaningful to say for itself.
This blog is over!
Josh Boyles 