Franchise Tribute
PRAISE: Director Fede Álvarez and his Co writer Rodo Sayagues definitely have love and then some for the Alien films and that love makes most of Alien Romulus work for the most part. Introducing characters that just want the simple pleasures in life and freedom to go with it I immediately cared about them. The standouts are Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny who reminds me of Natalie Portman) and Andy ( a truly excellent David Jonsson). The SFX are on point for the most part. A haunting and cold feel is presented and took hold of me as scenes slowly but surely kept the tension building as the crew begins to discover they are in more trouble than they think. The call backs to previous films worked about 80 % of the time. One really stood out and I welcomed the haunting and cold presence of it. Intentions and loyalty are played with and that really made a scene of true anguish work.The practical effects definitely worked in several horrifying scenes that were linked to some standout kills definitely not for the faint of heart along with a few jump scares. I thought the sound design was great,i actually felt every footstep,crash and rumble of an explosion.
PROBLEMS: Because I'm such a huge fan of The Alien movies it kind of killed the suspense for me in several scenes. I knew exactly what characters were looking at before the camera turns to it,and the fate of some characters way before they discovered it for themselves. I said before that 80 percent of the call backs worked but the delivery of a certain line of dialogue came off cheesy. One call back was horrifying to look at but eventually just lead to unintentional laughter from me because it reminded me of scenes from one of the worst films in the franchise.
Scale of 1 to 10 a 7½