Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

Not a Tuesday? I just had to write and share this instantly, with little in the way of self-editing in order to provide a raw reaction. It’s not short. I still ended up thinking about things not related to the movie as I talked, but here it is in the mostly raw after a 10.15am showing…

Spoilers spoilers spoilers ahead for Alien: Romulus. Do not read if you want to go into the film blind. I have not read anything about the movie, though reactions are already out. If you want to go in unspoiled, and I would recommend that you do, do not read any further.

This is clearly the best Alien movie since Aliens. There is no comparison. It isn’t perfect, but I am so owning this on physical media if I get the chance. I suspect folk will poke plot holes in it (I had some gripes: I’ll share the ones I remember later) but Jiminy Christmas this was a great experience (I watched it in Imax – that is worth it.) I’m going to go a second time to watch it in a more comfy chair, but Imax was fantastic for this film. And my cinema was pretend not super-real Imax, I should probably go and see it in a full Imax theatre.

The good: this film got the atmosphere of the early alien universe (the first two films) down cold. Yes there were member berries, and they actually interrupted early immersion (the woodpecker motion thing, the Bar sign were two that jumped out at me), but as an expanded look at the world of the Alien universe between Alien and Aliens this was pretty damn cool.

This film was tense. Yes, I needed to pee from about 15 minutes in, but even with an empty bladder my body would have been tensed up for a good hour plus. This director knows what he is doing in terms of tension, jump scares (I laughed when he got me one time – quietly!) and the “Oh fuck!” moments.

He incorporated old moments with new, and it wasn’t inventive for the sake of it as some lesser entries have been (looking at you AVP2, Covenant), the new aspects helped serve the plot and had been set up nicely by earlier events: the zero G to normal G moments were done brilliantly and used well, showing the smarts of our heroine.

The characterization was a massive leg up from recent installments. Not as good at the first two, but much better than the usual gaggles of morons we’ve been subjected to in previous installments. I was worried going in that this would be 90210 in space, and for a moment or two I was thinking “Zoomers in Spaaaace”, but the moment moved on and was forgotten quickly because I was invested in the action and characters pretty quickly.

And there was time for the film to breathe first before the action started. Once it did, hoo boy, what a ride. But I like, more now I think of it, that this was a  haunted house in space/ghost ship, and they did not go for the reading of the captain’s log thing to give us back story. Yes, some history was given, but not a lot, and not in a hackneyed (to me) way.

The action blended with periods of tension: you knew bad stuff was going to happen but our new friend Fede Alvarez guided you toward it very well, and often put a wee twist on it. So the circumstances of the chest burster scene had you worrying about what would happen next, and about the problems it instantly created, in addition to the horror of the moment itself, and the gross new way the poor victim found out it was coming. (As seen in trailer.) But that it was her to die, and where she was, and which doors etc were closed at the time, made the situation not just scary, but tense, and then he did… well I won’t spoil anything. The word is texture. This film is good with texture.

The heroine. Part of me wanted a dude to be the new heroine, but my god does she earn it and I am with her all the way, though I was ready for a subversion of expectations and for her to buy it, so she wasn’t plot armored… as much… as she could have been. She is the best heroine hands down since Ripley, and could really carry more films – the actress was fantastic, the direction that helped her shine brilliant.  

And part of what made her great was her relationship with Andy, very Of Mice and Men in nature, which I though worked very well indeed. I had a slightly hard time when she went back for him (I said there’d be spoilers!), because he had just betrayed them, and become a company drone, so why go back for someone/thing that will just let you die if it is still following its new programming? Because she saw the twitching, and realized his old programming was back, along with the unco-ordination? Not really, because she has to persuade him to let her pull his OS, and reboot him. Given their earlier familial stated bond, I let it go, but it could have been better expressed. Because she had already agreed to abandon him in the film, something badass Andy pointedly reminded her of. So that was why she went back? To do better? Maybe, but that’s a thought now, not a thought I had as watching. Man I need to see this film again.

The call backs. This film nodded to most other movies in the franchise, if briefly here and there. Some member berries were annoying, others satisfying, others, well I have a gripe here and there about them. No trace of the AVP movies, and I didn’t notice Covenant, apart from maybe the use of skin splitting, and other side of door thing, but Alien, Aliens and Resurrection all got obvious nods. Three? Not much of it either, (I think running away is a thing used in more than one horror film, haha!) but somehow I felt it was there, something subliminal, color palette at times maybe? Or  wish fulfillment on my part, no matter.

I did worry it was going to be too much Force Awakens and all homage and echoes, nothing of its own, just rehashes Frankensteined together. I imagine some folk may make that complaint, but to me there was enough originality here for it to avoid that: multiple viewings may change my mind there, because a first viewing is often so much surface, and there is a lot to visually overwhelm in this movie, so it could distract from weaknesses that will become more obvious with time. I’m hoping it also gets better with time, but the proof of the pudding will be in the rewatches.

Ok, gripe time. Some of this is petty, and I’m owning it.

I was so glad when the asshole character died. God he was annoying and I don’t care that they gave him some back story to explain it. He also did provide moments of camaraderie too, which was nice, but not enough for me to remotely want him to live. Fuckwit couldn’t even roll away from his acid bath, FFS! (He did have a chance after initial contact, I didn’t see him trapped in any way, so why stay there, why not roll in any direction due to pain? Ugh.)

The barbs on the legs of the face huggers. Looked cool, looked like foreshadowing. They tear facehuggers off people without any real damage inflicted. Some blood dribbles, woohoo. Chekov’s barbs were not used to gory effect. That was irritating.

Alien lifecycle advanced to superspeed again. Sigh. But there was a throw-away line about the organism accelerating lifecycles, so perhaps that covered it? This is a super minor gripe to be honest.

The room gets raised to 98.6 degrees, then you open a vast door into a differently temperatured corridor. FFS. That doesn’t work. Explain you need to make it hotter in the room, and that the door will have to be closed immediately behind, so if the temperature is off (Andy’s calculations are wrong) you are A) Fucked, B) Have nowhere to go but forward. So some extra tension before going in. It was a great scene and an excellent new scenario, but seeing that wide open door into a blue coloured (therefore signifying cooler in my lizard brain of color association) background corridor, which you saw as they advanced, somewhat ruined it for me. The headset chat, that was good and irritating at the same time, but I think it was meant to be, both sides not understanding the others’ predicament, so in fact my irritation added to the tension, and so was good. Hurrah.

What are the odds of a ship with burners accidentally put on just happening to land intact into a hangar bay the right size without any kind of auto landing assist? Nothing indicated that to me. And then the outer doors, which had been conveniently open, conveniently closed. It was a stretch. By this time could Ash/Rook have been orchestrating that? The hangar bay controls maybe, but not the in-death spasm of foot to thrusters, which basically should have ended them all, either by having the ship bugger off into open space and leave the two folk alive in there with an alien, or by crashing into the station, or by crashing into the ring. It seemed contrived. They needed a ship to leave on, so the ship was saved. If you saw Rook viewing and punching some buttons, grapples etc. intercepting the ship, all that evaporates (except for the improbable physics involved, but I rarely worry about that in these kinds of movies), and it becomes part of the Company’s spiderweb plan. That’s how it felt at the time. What no escape pods, station shuttle/early model dropship? I didn’t like it. But I lived with it quite happily.

Ian Holm. RIP. His reanimation in this film was great in places, patchy in others, so a bit uncanny valley. I thought our CGI tech was better than that by now to be honest, seeing some of the filters that get used with good effect nowadays. The Rook character as an immobile antagonist was great. The kids leave him behind as he is not an obvious threat, even the Synthetic hating one. A mistake, but an understandable one, and another source of tension: we know what the character’s don’t – nice again.

Why manufacture so many facehuggers? Were they planning to unleash them on Jackson? They don’t say, so that’s a gripe.  

The ending. I was agonized when the pregnant gal (yes, I never caught her name) injected herself with goo, that was a real “No!” moment, and excellently done – she had no idea what she was doing and was desperate, so it worked dramatically in real time. Then she birthed the homage to the Ripley clones in Resurrection. I wasn’t going to be happy, but I really thought she’d birth a queen. Or turn into one, a la the rat sequence. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it. Probably not great. Keep the aliens alien FFS.

The other thing about the ending was the threading of a large broken metal box needle while attached to the cable. Which managed not to get hit by any acid, fortunately enough. So the entire cargo bay detaches, and our heroine is pulled through the acid hole, and then the upper hatch unscathed? Maybe I missed some visual cues, but it seemed a mighty big stretch. However, by that stage she totally deserved to live so I let it go pretty quickly, but I would have liked some visual to guide me as to why she should survive that, and pass through unscathed. And why did the autopilot switch back on? Because of proximity alert to the ice ring? Maybe I missed that in all the noise and excitement.

There are other gripes I’m sure. Like how sick I am of people falling more than 15 feet onto metal surfaces, grilles no less, and are not functionally incapacitated. Humans can’t fall that far onto unyielding surfaces, especially not ones with raised roughened edges, and not be badly hurt. I’d like to see much less of that in movies in general, thanks.

Last one: how do they (the teens) have access to a spaceship, and where is Jackson’s colony equivalent of Antartcica control to ask then what the hell they are doing? What is the function of a spaceship with no freezers? What cargo do they ferry and where? Around the planet? (These are later thoughts – sorry) And why didn’t the company signal Jackson’s command team and request assist/retrieval of the specimen? It was just random that the teens spotted it first? Seemed a stretch as the colony would have a large dish array – I meant even Fiorina 161had big old dishes/antennae. But whatevs, I accepted it as a plot mover. Didn’t like it.

 Last last one – the black goo. Ugh. Fuck Prometheus. Dragging it into this movie hurts me, I’d rather the only canon films were Alien and Aliens, and consign Prometheus to the trashcan of history, but Ridley is still involved (Via Scott Free – I’ve got to say I wasn’t happy to see that in the opening credits) so his other film with the rolling Juggernaut and the woman who can’t choose left or right gets referenced. I was not pleased about that, because that search to find your makers BS is still live as a result, and therefore its origin of the xenomorph is still live and that blows. It was an alien, from space, unexplained. The Prometheus half-assed explanation was fucking awful, and now it has infected this film. I would triple excise that from this film if I could. Fuck right off with Prometheus, a very pretty, but utterly vacuous movie. Rook could easily have synthesized A black goo (or green goo, any color goo) and have it capable of working to modify any exposed DNA, and not link it to Prometheus. This means David is still lurking somewhere in space listening to Wagner and being brain-damagedly pretentious. Ugh. Get to fuck with that.

Actions have consequences: that is a bad one, and gets worse the more I think about it. Hearing the Prometheus  music refrain made me cringe. That was one reference that did not need to be made, especially in terms of plot.

BUT: overall I loved this film. Because it was a real Alien movie, in a universe that looked and acted like the early Alien universe, minus the Prometheus moment. It was exciting, it was a proper horror film, it was tense, there were relationships present that you could believe in, love and betrayal and loyalty, good things done adequately at worst to very well. I know, I damn in my praise. Bottom line, this franchise has been so marred by bad sequels that one that does 80% of its job correctly is genius. This film looked great, had new elements that were gross and worked, was not a pastiche, had me involved and on the figurative edge of my seat for a large amount of its almost 2 hour run time. I was wrung out by the end, in the best possible way. I want to know how our heroine’s story continues, but am okay with her having something of a survivor’s ending and that’s enough.  

I am totally going to watch it again. Second time around I will probably be more critical (I know, right!), and pay more attention to the precise sequence of events, but this film can never be as bad as AVP2 or Resurrection. I am a lone fan of the OG AVP, budgeted as it was, but this is way better. I hated Prometheus and Covenant (AKA as Idiot Scientists in Space 1 and 2) because of the wasted promise in both, especially the first, so this again is way better.

I hate nit-picking, but I did. Please believe me when I say the good FAR outweighs any bad, and a film that looked felt and sounded like an alien film after so many pale imitations, and was genuinely tense and scary, is a fantastic achievement. This film rocked. And I am sure I will still think that after a second and third viewing.

If you are an Alien fan, and you foolishly read this before going to see the movie, go see it, you will still love it despite my gripes.

Macdonald out.