Alien Romulus

Synopsis

A group of miners look to leave a planet where they are stuck due to moving regulations by high jacking a derelict space station. However, that space station was a research facility of questionable origin.

Review

Oh man. What a crazy movie. For a movie that is 7 years after the last, it does exactly what Prometheus did and gives the series some new life.

The story is actually really good, and is honestly a bit more believable than any of the others the more I think about it. There is a lot of building and learning inside the movie that you don't get other than in a tactical conversation in previous movies. As a fan of good character growth, it was really nice to see characters that were more than initial interactions and to see them have some change. Even the "Artificial Person" had character growth even though some of it may have been manufactured. What bothers me about this story is more about how it ties into Prometheus and Alien Covenant, or at least barely does. It is I think a better sequel to Alien than Aliens. In fact, it is a direct sequel based on conversational story telling.

This movie goes back to the promise that practical sets make a huge difference into how you feel about the movie. There isn't much in this movie that doesn't like you can touch it. That you can't understand the layout. Speaking of the layout, Remus and Romulus in history are the mythical founders of Rome and the space station is split between two halves and each side is based on them. Simple, but effective design. You can understand that the two halves had different missions in their research.

Before I watched this, I was at Spec's getting a new bottle of Scotch, and the sales rep I was talking to made a good comment about this movie. It is a really nice blend of Alien and Aliens in the mix of horror vs. action. The characters don't make insanely stupid horror movie decisions after the initial punch to the face.

Slight spoiler about the end. The alien that shows at the end and how it shows up is one of the most WTF moments I've ever seen in movies. As crazy as Saw is with its torture porn, it falls into the disturbing. This is just crazy, and you make a lot of "What the hell" statements while watching that final fight.

My Rating

So in my review of Alien Covenant I said that they would be a better story being in their own universe rather than tied to the Aliens universe and I think this movie is the answer to that same sentiment. Fede Alverez, the director, does an insane amount of research and played the games and that really shows in the feel you get while watching it. So much ties into the original films that you really feel that it is part of the original especially with that last minute fight scene. This movie is at least an 9. I wanted to give it an 8, but I was highly entertained, and I can't think of a reason to not give it a 9. Also, Andy was done dirty.

Parental Rating

The final scene that I mentioned rules both of them out of watching this or even liking it. There is a decent amount of language and while there is no direct nudity, but it's close. Violence and gore is over the top compared to others. I am going to say rejected by both.

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