18/08/2024
My personal ratings for the franchise:
Alien: 9/10
Aliens:9/10
Alien3: Extended Cut 8/10
Alien Resurrection: 6/10
AVP: 8/10
AVP Requiem: 3/10
Prometheus: 7/10
Alien Covenant: 6/10
Alien Romulus: 8/10
Had a few hours to dissect and think about Romulus and decided to get it down. First up there is no such thing as the perfect movie, though the first two movies do come pretty close to that hence their high score. My ranking is on story, character and plot development and overall general feel of the movie, including effects, score, etc.
Each of the movies following Aliens has its own flaws and merits that make it stand out for one reason or another, beit scientists who don't know the first thing about an alien environment in Covenant, or people to dumb to run sideways in Prometheus, over use of CGI or janky looking effects, all play their part.
Alien has been with me since shortly after leaving highschool in 1979, and has been one of my go to franchise genres, even before it was a franchise itself. I own a lot of books, comics, toys and models based on the movies and even at one point started writing my own fiction set in the universes created by Ron Schusette and Dan O'Bannon so long ago ..
Without spoiling the new movie, there a good many things it does really, really well and sets up some amazing story points for the future, and offers a few glimpses never seen before. It is pretty much fast paced and has some very tense moments which many may find scary. However it has negative sides too, one of the most important for me being how dark it is, and I don't mean in tone, at times I really had trouble focusing on the screen to make out what was going on.
Alien Romulus stands a lot taller than Covenant and Prometheus, though the hand of Ridley Scott is ever present and it does seem that a lot of fan service is being paid here, much like Deadpool 3 panders so much to the comic book fans. I think that the world's envisioned by Scott are outstanding and easily amongst the best in fiction, but he often has to go back in and mess with what isnt broken.
The entire series of movies (I have just watched all of them in the past few days again) has some extreme high points such as the xeno Vs predator in AvP and the sheer claustrophobia of Alien 3, as well as the original chestburster scene in Alien, and the firefight in Aliens, true gems of cinema for anyone who likes science fiction as much as I do.
I've ranked Romulus at 8/10 as you can see above, alongside the extended cut of Alien 3, and Aliens Vs Predator, three movies in joint second place. While AvP may not have the same styling as some of the other movies in the franchise, I do think that Paul WS Anderson gets far to bad a rap and it is a pretty decent popcorn movie, something that I do miss. The prequel movies are too polished and the constant religious overtones often put me off the story, despite some amazing actors in both movies.
Resurrection is one of the worst films on the list, despite a fantastic cast, I just found it too dumb on the whole with the comic elements detracting from the story and often making no sense at all. Alien Vs Predator Requiem is total garbage with no real redemption at all, other than it ends, it's poorly acted, badly lit and has no single character you can root for. In fact I think I'm being overly generous with a score of 3 out of 10!
Lastly Alien 3. This is often seen as the worst of all the original 4 movies by fans and depending on the cut you watch it's understandable. However it's also got some amazing acting from Weaver and Charles S Dutton, and Charles Dance whose characters we can emote with. Romulus stands as a very good movie, it has fast paced action scenes, tension and excellent effects, but sadly lacks the character development that was seen in Alien 3 and as such we don't care as much about the characters on the whole.
Alien Romulus doubled is original expenditure on its first day of release, making it a sure fire success in the process and leaves things open for upcoming sequels down the line. I do hope that Ridley Scott hands over the reins of the franchise to Alverez has there is a lot of scope left yet to explore in this amazing and dangerous universe.
On the whole I think Alien and all it's movies can be summed up by a single line of dialogue
"The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility!"
