Alien: Romulus (REVIEW) | Projector | The most conflicted I've ever felt about a film

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The Alien franchise bursts out of it's egg again, away from Ridley Scott's direction, but this new entry does a lot of things right, a lot of things a bit wrong in a pandering way, and one absolutely terrible thing.

0:00 Main Review
20:35 Spoiler Section on You-Know-Who
25:37 Conclusion

#Alien #aliens #alienromulus #fedealvarez #ridleyscott #alien1979 #prometheus #caileespaeny #davidjonsson #isabelamoner #isabelamerced #archierenaux #aileenwu #spikefearn #horrorfilm #xenomorph #filmreview #moviereview #cinema #ianholm #review

[ShaneKixmiller]

Let’s not forget the immaculate job they did in bringing back Dr. Loomis for the flashback sequence in Halloween kills. It wasn’t a deep fake. It was an actor who looked and sounded a lot like Donald Pleasance and they fitted him with prosthetics and it’s the most amazing job I have ever seen. They didn’t disrespect the actor, and it was one of the best parts, if not the best part of the movie. Halloween kills, as much as people hate it, should be a shining example as how to bring back dead actors. It can be done. Hell, they did it in Voice in Halloween H2O.

[Peroy]

"No more Alien movies in the vending machine please!!! - Don't worry, there wil be plenty of Alien movies for you. Nobody will take away your precious Alien movies!"

[robotrix]

Edit - Never had a movie lose me so fast. Did that look like an explosion the Nostromo could come out of in pieces? If they're that close just go to the planet with the Space Jockey!!!! You have to have travel permits but you can just take a company vehicle off colony out of nowhere and nobody chases JFC!
Scott said on the Red Carpet that he was writing over the director's shoulder - and he was kicking chairs over it. This is what we're going to have until Scott passes on or Fox grows a spine.
This franchise has had an android problem from day one, IMHO. Alien gives you zero clues that androids are even possible at this time until the reveal...and it's obvious to everyone on board that it has to belong to the company. Can someone living on a mining platform as an indentured servant really afford to keep even a old model android???? Probably not but Scott wants his android
But love how those three guys on the Prometheus sacrificed themselves for nothing trying to keep the black goo from leaving the planet - because Shaw just takes off in a ship full of it (David was still in two pieces he could force her). Thought she was just as adamant that the Engineer had to be stopped? And so it not only is spread but makes it's way to Earth.
Let me guess - the goo still just does whatever the script needs it to do?
Can't wait to hear what you have to say about The Crow, Mathew. Unlike this film, just because the movie spends a lot of time with the characters still doesn't mean you get to know them in any way but one.
PS - SPOILER - They know Lance Henriksen is still alive, right?

[amovieguy]

The reason why Andy said the famous line from Aliens (in the context of this film) is, because Bjorn (the one in the bandanna) would say, “bitch” a few times in his sentences, so Andy pick up on that from him to say in that moment where he confronts the Alien with the pulse rifle.

[oranmccann]

Every time someone said a famous line from the other films, I kept on saying to myself "He said it"

[christopherclack]

I have an hour left on my drive to Savannah, Georgia, you dropped this review at the perfect time. Thank you, Matthew.

[humblescribe]

Talking about references to Blade Runner, the trio of street kids who pick on Andy in the opening scene are dressed exactly like the trio of streetkids who steal Deckard's car's... radio? air conditioning unit? Mechanical thing on the top of his car anyway - while he's sat outside the Bradbury apartments in Blade Runner.

[jackkain]

What I appreciated about this movie is that none of the characters are morons. All the choices they make (with arguably one exception) make sense with the information they have at the time. That it makes matter worse is no fault of their own. This a very nice contrast to the last 2 movies where that was abundantly not the case.

I also agree entirely with your feelings on Prometheus and Covenant! I've said ever since seeing it that Covenant felt like Scott having a tantrum because people slagged Prometheus so badly.

And I feel, too, that the beginning was rushed. We needed a similar opening to the first 30 min of Alien where we got to know the crew and see them do their jobs, to see how they work together. There was a perfect opportunity for that in this film, too. Instead of just describing it to Rain later, they should have shown us the crew of the ship having a bit of a misadventure and finding the station. It could have also shown the cold, uncaring nature of the colony admin, too. Then we could cut to Rain and Andy and play that part as seen in the film.

[captcrais]

This movie was terrible! I couldn’t connect with the characters and all the call backs with the Aliens were awful. I hated hearing the Iconic line from Aliens the most. Crap movie.

[jamesatkinsonja]

5:54 I think the in-universe explanation is that the Nostromo is a low-class 'working class' mining ship while the Prometheus+ Covenant were more advanced 'Elite' ships but that's the issue with doing prequels long after the originals [the Star Wars prequels technology feels more advanced than what we see in the original trilogy in general].

[dvass]

Despite the whole "Tarkin in Rogue One" aspect, as well as the ultimate fate of one of the characters, I absolutely loved this movie. It's clear that Fede Alvarez understood why people fell in love with the series in the first place, and it's nice to finally have a good Alien movie out in theaters again, albeit an imperfect one. Alvarez recently stated that he would love to collaborate with Dan Trachtenberg on an Alien vs. Predator movie, and personally I am very much on board with that idea.

[justinriley]

That ONE aspect really kept me from fully loving it. But, I still really enjoyed this.

[GlenGlingo]

I'm glad to hear someone praise Alien 3, vastly underrated although the extended cut is far superior.

[freddyRAY]

Awesome news! I am so glad to see your video I've been waiting for you to talk about this one. I went to see it twice in theaters. Loved the hell out of it but I couldn't agree more with you on the case of the CGI reincarnation of an actor that has passed the last 4 years. I didn't dig that but I got to be honest I don't know what else to do. The movie did its job and this is Disney in charge of the alien series now and I don't see anything getting better when it comes down to that type of of money grubbing studio execs but overall yes, great movie. I just don't see any way we're going to ever stop this war of CGI reincarnating actress of the past. It's just unreal how sad it's gotten

[stephenatwood]

I don't understand why people (and critics) are calling the Rook insertion a cameo considering how important the character is to the plot.

[lordvlygar]

2:00 Prometheus originally was its own movie, just set in the same universe as Alien (and by extension Blade Runner and Terminator). But, Ridley was forced to put in some xenomorph stuff and the space jockey as the engineers (ugh). Had he been able to stick to his original plan, I would have loved it so much more.

Anyway, I know you are the Filmbrain, but I am not sure you knew that about Prometheus.

[VenusHeadTrap]

Been waiting for this Matthew! And you posted your review less than an hour from Perfect Organism and their full review! I’m psyched

[KingHawkBloxYT]

I have to admit I haven’t watched any of the Alien movies, but given I want to expand my film horizons, I might try to watch them in the future. This was a great review as always.

[xHxx]

I really liked it. And went with people who have not really seen the alien franchise before and they liked it so it is a very good entry point for newer people. But yeah, that one thing also bugged the hell out of me.

[NickMichalak]

The sound mix on the colony was very cluttered. Trying to identify characters via the dialogue was very difficult for me, and created some confusion for me and I saw this in an AMC IMAX theatre with top quality sound.

In terms of look and feel, this does get so much right in matching the worlds those first three Alien films established. The craft is clearly on display in high quality, but Alvarez falters in many other places. Some of the characters were better portrayed than they were written, and the Prometheus connections struck me off kilter. It kinda felt like they were trying too hard to make everything relevant instead of making this more self-contained. The fan service really irked the hell out of me, especially the Rook character. It made me want to walk out of the theatre in anger. I had utter contempt for it. When David Gordon Green does a better job with bringing back a legacy franchise character by utilizing smart casting and makeup instead of dodgy CGI, you have truly failed.

And AVP: Requiem & Resurrection were EXACTLY the grotesque choices in that conclusion that came to mind and being baffled why anyone would evoke those films, for crying out loud!

I was conflicted so much on this film as well. If they stripped away the fan service, it would’ve settled in with me much better.