It’s… not great.
A latest in the weird reboot of the property since Prometheus (2012), this one appears to be an attempt to combat the poor reception to the other movies by going back to the roots. Unfortunately, it appears that Ridley Scott has both forgotten everything that people liked about Alien (1979) and fired everyone who mentions what worked or questions the genius of his new Prometheus ideas. In this case, he didn’t even bother to make it himself, but he did watch it after the fact.
It tries to play the greatest hits, and it seems somewhat inspired by the hit video game Alien: Isolation (2014), but ultimately it falls flat because whenever it has the choice of being a horror movie or trying to be the fresh take… it always chooses the later. I’m not sure how much control director Fede Alvarez had, but this seems to be his third attempt to redo a classic horror and so far… none of them seem to be working.
The saving grace of the film is the amazing standout performance by David Jonsson. It is a brilliant display of talent and craft from beginning to end.
From here on, there be spoilers:
Continue reading I watched Alien: Romulus