@nessisonett That's not even remotely the worst part, either - I might have missed more of the cringe inducing "homages" because my eyes were rolled back into my skull for at least half the runtime. Come back "Alien Resurrection" all is forgiven.
I made another one of my "custom" double-features at the cinema on Sunday; first watching Blink Twice and then moving across the hall to see Alien: Romulus
Blink Twice is a psychological thriller and the directorial debut of Zoë Kravitz and even comes with a trigger warning before the movie starts! I had gone in blind and did not know what to expect other than it was a thriller and initially I was a little disappointed. The first act was maybe a bit too long and dragged a bit, and while Kravitz managed to lace the proceedings with a slight tinge of dread, I found myself thinking it took too long setting the stage for the next two acts.
When act two came around, however, it got simultaneously quite creepy and quite funny and I started enjoying it quite a bit more. Act three was almost pure brilliance and made me come away from the movie feeling quite satisfied. Far from perfect, but a very solid first effort from Kravitz and she may be a director to look out for.
Alien: Romulus will probably not need any sort of introduction, so I'll cut right to my impression of it: I liked it, but I also had quite a few issues with it. First and foremost, I think this would have been better if Alvarez would have been able to make his own movie without having Scott looking over his shoulder. It feels like the movie was compromised by the need to accommodate everything that has come before, including the unfortunate retcon that took place in Scott's own Prometheus. There are also some incredibly heavy handed callbacks in there that pulls you right out the proceedings.
Also, the practice of digitally resurrecting dead actors needs to stop. It's not something I'm up in arms about and it won't necessarily ruin a movie for me, but here it is wholly unnecessary and feels exploitative. Unfortunately, I don't see this going away until a successful lawsuit sets a legal precedent that will make typically risk averse movie studios shy away from the practice. Until that happens, I can only hope that the practice will be mostly limited to short, heartfelt homages sanctioned by the next of kin, like they did in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
Now, this may be unfair (and maybe even completely wrong), but I don't fault Alvarez for the things I felt went wrong with this movie; it feels very much like Scott (and maybe Disney) interference to me.
Still though, in sum, I felt that this was a decent Alien movie and the best one to have come out since Alien 3 in my opinion, thanks to some really tense moments and Alvarez' trademark brutal, almost sadistic, treatment of his characters (one character in particular goes through the wringer here). It also contributes with some decent world-building by showing us how daily life in the shadow of the massive Weyland-Yutani corporation is in the opening act.
@LN78 Been wanting to see it for a while now, but it hasn't been available here yet. It's showing as a part of Oslo Film Festival, but it sold out while I was on holiday, unfortunately. Hopefully it will open wide after the festival or hit a local streamer soon
@FuriousMachine I found it was a treat - but I suspect that it will rub a lot of people the wrong way. On that topic, I was quite surprised that you came down on the side of liking "Alien:Romulus" even though you had all the same criticisms of the thing that I had. I thought it was the worst installment in the franchise (discounting the "AvP" movies) by a mile.
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