Alien: Romulus Movie- Spoiler Review

Alian Romulus is in theaters now and this is going to be a spoiler-filled video so if you haven't seen the movie yet go watch my stories, I talk about it spoiler-free and then come back here after you've seen the film. And this film follows a group of downtrodden young space colonists in pursuit of better life conditions who encounter hostile creatures while scavenging a derelict space station.Let's just start off with that. Rook with the likeness of Ian Holm who played Ash in the first alien film. This character is obviously of the same model. It's not literally Ash which I'm sure is going to confuse a lot of people.

That's probably really my only real issue with its story wise is that a lot of people are going to look at the upper half of an android's body and think well that's just the upper half of the android's body from alien because it looks just like him. That's him. It's not him. It's a different model but it has sort of the same goals. It's been influenced by mother and the things that mother wanted in the original alien. The actual xenomorph from the end of alien I guess is there.

You can see the grappling hook that Ripley used to kill it sticking out its back. The discussion around using an actor's likeness that has passed has been talked about since Rogue One, what they did with Grand Moff Tarkin and Peter Cushing. Fetty Alvarez has said that Ian Holm's family is totally fine with this.

That's not any of my concern or my business. I just think that there weresome shots that could have been better if it was in shadow. I think that would have benefited some of the uncanny valley stuff that we seem to have not fully escaped yet. But as far as an android character in this film that I thought did everything right, I want to talk about Andy. This is a really complex and different version of an android or a synthetic in an alien movie and that he seems to malfunction just a little bit. He needs reset a lot. He's kind of like an adoptive brother to Kaylee Spani's character Rain. But at one point in the movie he's given a chip that affects his prime directive and completely changes what his goals are. It's no longer about just protecting Rain and making sure that everything with her is okay.

It's also about recovering a xenomorph and everything that Ash and the original movie wanted. And so that makes him an extremely interesting and complex character that is able to change on a dime in a way that we completely accept,

which I can only imagine was really fun to write. Something that I was also very happy about is that this movie does not ignore Prometheus or Covenant, two films that I like more than most people I think. The black goo shows up again, Rook calls it the Prometheus fire, and there's a little bit more discussion about what came first when it comes to the engineers or the xenomorphs or exactly how those all come into play. And speaking of the engineers, there is a very horrific creature that is birthed near the end of this movie that kind of reminded me a bit of the thing at the end of Rick that's basically like a human xenomorph hybrid that appears with like the face of an engineer, the body of a xenomorph, and the height of both of them combined.

And this is not the type of thing that I would want to see come at me really anywhere. I'd rather just not see that ever in my lifetime. In my original review, I mentioned that a really great suspense sequence involved anti-gravity, and it is of course when Kaley Spani mows down all of these xenomorphs, turns off the gravity and the ship and all of the acid blood is floating in this tunnel because if she lets it fall to the ground, it will eat through the hull and they're on the lowest level and everything will decompress. So she has to float through all of this acid blood. That's a really, really tensing and a very good idea. I also adored this movie's commitment to practical effects.

There are fully realized actual xenomorphs that are really there. Fetty Alvarez has posted some great behind-the-scenes videos of those things in action while they were doing tests.

This creates a better experience for us as audience members because it's easier to buy into the things that we're looking at, but no doubt it also helped the actors on set as well. Something else about this movie that I really appreciated is one of the things that works best about the first alien amongst a million things. A lot of people talk about the alien franchise and they're like,

well, it's all about the xenomorph. That's why people complain a lot about Prometheus. It's why the xenomorph showed up in Covenant is that they just wanted more xenomorph. But the thing that I think really embodies what the alien franchise is and why people like it is that most of the characters in the best films are just blue collar workers that we can relate to. They're people with backgrounds that we understand even if it's in this grand science fiction universe.

Ridley Scott said that the reason the technology in Prometheus, which is a prequel, looks so much better and more expensive. And the technology in Alien, which happens later, is because the people in Prometheus are more rich and it's being funded by Wayland himself. And the workers in Alien are just blue collar workers who are using an old ship and old technology. And I think one of the things I love about Alien Romulus is that we're with characters who are like that. And then its characters are down on their luck. They're actually trying to invade another ship just to steal things from it so they can hopefully get the fuck out of where they are because they're so tired of their lot in life. And I think all the best alien movies are like that. Aliens, for instance, is just about a bunch of grunts who are just trying to do their job who encounter a ton of xenomorphs.

And so it's easy to relate to these characters because you've got this world that's massive that you have to buy into. But if you can buy into it through people that you feel like you could meet on the street, it's easier. I actually just rewatch Prometheus and Alien Covenant after seeing this movie. And I really do think at the end of the day they will complement each other. Prometheus and Covenant 100% have bigger ideas and loftier goals. And this movie is more of a horror film, more of a haunted house movie with a xenomorph that has a few ideas. And some connections to those movies. But this is 100% more of a get your blood pumping, have some scares.

And I really enjoyed it. And so if it revitalizes audience interest in the Alien world once again, and that's great, hopefully we'll get some more. I think Fetty Alvarez did a really good job directing the movie, and Kaley Spani is excellent in it. Those are my spoiler-filled thoughts on Alien Romulus. Thank you guys so much as always for watching.