Alien Romulus Review.
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00:00Is this really where you want to spend the rest of your life?
00:10You know I don't.
00:13Then this is our only ticket out of here.
00:26I've seen Alien Romulus and it's pretty good.
00:29I think it's pretty good.
00:30I actually think Alien is back to form after whatever the hell it's been for the last
00:35so many years.
00:36I mean I like Covenant I've said before but it's pretty good.
00:39It has a really good set up and it actually establishes the characters pretty well fairly
00:45early on.
00:46It makes it clear like this person you're not going to like so they're going to die.
00:50It can be a bit cliche with these characters though I think.
00:54It's not only cliche because you know we know what the Alien stereotypical crew is because
00:58we've had Alien.
01:00Like how well does it recreate that feeling of like the crew and they're isolated.
01:04Pretty well.
01:05I'd actually say the feeling of the crew pretty much matches the first one.
01:11I mean some of them as I said they're a bit cliche.
01:13I feel like it has like the bad character like this person's not a nice person.
01:18You know they're going to die.
01:19The Alien didn't really have that feel the first one like everyone was kind of like a
01:23grown up person.
01:24That's why I feel like some of the characters are a bit more cliche.
01:28But I think they still serve a pretty good role in the form of you know this is your
01:33crew.
01:34This is the journey they're going to go through.
01:37I do think some of the scares in it were a bit cheap.
01:41It kind of relies on jump scares a wee bit.
01:43Which Alien had in the past but there was always a good bug update and this one there
01:48kind of it would just flash the screen you know.
01:50It's just loud.
01:51Sting.
01:52Particularly towards the end.
01:55But it still holds a pretty good horror atmosphere throughout it and it still has that classic
02:00Aliens like horror of like when the Facehuggers were released.
02:04I don't know if you've seen the trailers or not.
02:06But when they're released it's not just like oh they're flying at your face or they're
02:10flying at the camera.
02:11They're circling the characters you know.
02:14They're just kind of like coming back to life.
02:18Yeah it's pretty scary.
02:20Like I don't think I scare too often though with horror films.
02:23I'm not saying I'm a big tough guy but you know I actually find especially the later
02:30half of them to be pretty scary especially when there's a certain reveal.
02:35I'm not quite spotting anything.
02:36But there's a reveal later on that it really does that Alien horror where it's really gross
02:42but also like it's so outside of like what you expect.
02:47Like horror norms.
02:48Aye.
02:49Like it's hard to describe because Alien is such a unique.
02:52Kind of franchise and atmosphere.
02:56I do think it can be a bit predictable at times.
02:59But I think it just comes out in horror films these days and just films in general you know.
03:03There's so many.
03:04It's such like a over polluted genre now especially horror.
03:08It's so much.
03:09I mean Shudder has its own platform just for horror films.
03:13Aye.
03:14As I say it can be predictable.
03:17But you know I don't think that's really a negative.
03:19I mean when the Alien come out like the 70s you know you're gonna have to pull off a formula
03:23somewhere.
03:50Do you have a clear crew hierarchy as a clear who?
03:52Like the Ripley characters?
03:53Aye.
03:54We all.
03:55Like in the original obviously it took a wee while for you to realise Ripley's the main
03:58character but from the get go you know who the main characters are.
04:01There's two main characters and they're actually pretty decent actors as well.
04:06They're not just there to be scared and run away from terrifying creatures to actually
04:11establish people, establish goals.
04:13I mean the first one obviously was Ripley and the crew trying to first exterminate it
04:19or get rid of it and or and then there's Ripley trying to get away.
04:23This one that has you know they're there for something.
04:25They encountered Alien for a reason.
04:27They're not there just because it happens upon them.
04:30Like they're there because they want to gain something so they can have a better life.
04:35So there's stakes and ways of like they kind of have to be there but there's also stakes
04:39because they have the face.
04:41So it's almost a blend of Alien and Aliens where they know that there's a threat.
04:44So it's not like a completely like unknown factor like they know it's dangerous.
04:49That's actually a good point.
04:51It would say it starts off pretty strong like Alien and then it kind of lends into Aliens
04:57a bit more.
04:58I wouldn't say it gets action-y at all but it definitely has that kind of atmosphere
05:02about it.
05:03And it establishes again that the Alien is intelligent.
05:06I feel like in previous ones they kind of got away from it like they were just an animalistic
05:10creature.
05:11Especially in some of the sequels.
05:12Like it would just blow up the main character and try and kill him.
05:17They have a slight spoiler but I don't think it ruins the film or anything but there's
05:21a scene where they have a gun and it's not because they're going to shoot it.
05:25They just know that if they hold the gun maybe it's not going to come straight at them.
05:29It'll try and find another way to get to them.
05:31So they bring back the Aliens that are actually intelligent.
05:34So it made it so scary in the first place because it's not just like a dumb animal.
05:39It's like this thing is going to hunt you and it's going to play with its food.
05:42Like it's not just out there to kill things.
05:44It's out there.
05:45It almost has fun with it.
05:47Not quite in the Predator way but definitely somewhere like it's a threat.
05:53This one Debbie Hawkins is back in it and I think it's going to lend to the franchise.
05:58They go actually somewhere good now.
06:02It doesn't mess with the lore as much as the rest of the ones.
06:05It's just an isolated story.
06:06There's no big grander plot.
06:09It's just this crew and I think that's what Aliens should be doing.
06:11That's what Predators should be doing.
06:12Well that's what it did.
06:13Way Prey.
06:15It's just an isolated story with this really good design of a monster.
06:19We already know what's going to happen but you can still make a fantastic movie about
06:23it.
06:24You don't need to.
06:25It's not re-inventing the wheel.
06:26No.
06:27You just do well.
06:28It does have callbacks to previous films but it's not essential to the plot.
06:32They're not pointing a finger like look you know this.
06:36I mean there's one line in the film where they pretty much look at the camera and go
06:39mind that.
06:40You're going to get a tattoo.
06:44Overall I thought it was a really good film and I would recommend horror fans to see it
06:48and Alien fans definitely.
06:50Especially after the last few years of good films.
06:53You think we're well out of that sort of the waters of Prometheus and Covenant.
06:57The sort of talkies of Alien movies.
07:00I mean I liked those films but this is definitely getting back to form.
07:06It seems like it's setting up a format for future films and I hope they actually balled
07:10off that because there's so much to do here.
07:12Alien is such a unique franchise and design and atmosphere that you could do so much with
07:17for years.
07:18Not to the point where you get sick of it though.
07:22See the whole set design I'm really curious because I know the director, Fede Falverdi,
07:26really wanted to recreate that 70s Alien feel on the spaceship.
07:31Is it proper?
07:33You couldn't tell the difference?
07:36It definitely has, I wouldn't say it's own spin on it.
07:41It definitely has that old Alien feel.
07:44Old new tech.
07:45But it has a wee bit more modernisation on it I would say.
07:51But not so much where it's a different thing.
07:53It still feels like Alien, the Alien franchise.
07:57The cold, the space isn't this glamorous thing, it's not like Star Wars or Star Trek, it's
08:01dirty.
08:02It's industrialised, everything's done between margins, it looks cheap.
08:07This isn't because of Prometheus and Covenant, it's all very generic, like future tech stuff
08:13and it's just kind of boring.
08:15Yeah, definitely.
08:16The set design's good and the Alien itself, the design is brilliant, it's just talking
08:23back to the older stuff.
08:25But what I liked about it is that, there's a weird thing I always thought about, once
08:29the JS version comes out, it kind of just screws off, this one actually shows what it
08:33does during that period, it shows how it grows.
08:38And not just, oh, it's like Alien now, instead of just weak to anything.
08:41Screw it.
08:52But yeah, overall I would recommend the film to horror fans and Alien fans, it's brilliant,
08:57it's really good.
08:58Apart from the cheap jumpscares and cliché characters, it's a good film, I loved it from
09:02start to end.
09:03So it's the best movie this year up until now?
09:05The best film I've seen, 100%, definitely.
09:35Are you sure you want to do this?