This weekend sees the release of ALIEN: ROMULUS in theaters, the newest installment of the long-running ALIEN franchise. There have been highs and lows and now there’s a new story, brought to us by director/screenwriter Fede Alvarez (who rebooted EVIL DEAD not long ago).
There will be a lot of reviews out there, positive and negative. If you want to read the official RIOTUS review, it’s here. This post is more of an op-ed and something of a dissent.
Okay, right up front: I am somewhat conflicted about this movie. That’s a rare situation because I’ve been covering books, television, comics, and movies since 1986. I know what I like. And… I’m not sure here. So let me walk you through the movie a bit and share my thinking.
(SPOILERS MAY OCCUR! You’ve been warned—also maybe some bad language. Proceed at your own risk)
Rather than recap the movie, which has been done often (spoilers included) online, I’ll just dig into what worked for me and what didn’t.
Given the commentary floating around, about how the movie picks up and uses bits and pieces from other Alien/prequel movies, well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not accidental. The script by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues (with credit to original writers Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett) is a mosaic made from every other Alien movie made, including a few pieces from Alien vs. Predator and Prometheus. If you have a favorite bit from any of those movies, you’ll likely find it (or a close approximation) in this movie.
So the plot is an amalgam of the other movies. This is where I get stuck. Not on the beautiful visuals, the amazing creature design, the original stuff threaded into the great big Alien tapestry—and trust me, there’s plenty to enjoy in this movie—but it’s the dang story.
ANOTHER group of ragtag plucky blue-collar joes falling into a situation they are not remotely prepared to handle. ANOTHER WTF moment or ten as they discover the true danger they’re in. ANOTHER picking off the cast one-by-one with help available… but withheld.
I’ve seen this movie, in a few variations. We all have. And this is well done, make no mistake. If you like ALIEN movies, you’ll probably really dig this one. But we’ve been there and done that. It’s really good rehashing of past stories, remixed and repackaged… but it’s a rehash all the same. (BTW, maybe it’s my 60-yr old ears, but the sound mix in the theater was terrible; I could barely make out the dialogue over the loud background noise, which means I could well have missed stuff that was, um, important for me to know.)
Okay, since we’re discussing the story, I had two problems with the plot that, if you’ve read this far, you might as well hear.
1) Why was the company searching the wreckage of the Nostromo for the alien? Why not just go to LV-426, where the crew found the blasted thing, and harvest all the eggs they want? It’s not like it’s that much farther to travel and they knew where the planet was. Did they think the alien was the only one of its kind there? Didn’t Kane radio back that the cargo hold of the alien ship was FULL of eggs? Seems like something Ash would have reported.
2) Why did the company just let Romulus float along, to crash into a planetary ring? Didn’t they bother to investigate when this black-tech outpost went silent? I mean, c’mon, this is a huge investment here. You can be sure the US government would send someone to look into a military base or secret lab suddenly going dark.
But… these are quibbles in the overall scheme of things, presented to show you how I can dwell on annoying plot holes.
Summing up: ALIEN: ROMULUS is good, entertaining, scary where it needs to be… but it didn’t offer up enough for me to put it alongside ALIEN or ALIENS, both of which gave us something new AND scary. ROMULUS settles for the latter.
