Alien: Romulus - Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) to write/direct

Just back as well.

Really enjoyed it, not a film to rave about, but they hit all the right notes. A few times it could have all gone wrong (a few cheap jumpscares, one or two ropey bits of dialogue), but never went off the rails.

It's a really solid addition to the series, nice bit of world building, good suspenseful moments, good set pieces, solid cast, pacing was bang on. One properly grim gore scene. Effects were great overall, the physical models

The earlier time period and 80s electronics and the industrial sets work better than the more sanitised future period from Prometheus/Covenant.

Also, the lead lass was really good, anyone else think she would have made a brilliant Ellie for the second season of TLOU?
 
This felt like Prey did to the Predator franchise - It's not an "amazing" film by any means but its a competent, "OK" 6/10 film which (thankfully) didn't trash the franchise legacy any further like the last couple of films did so I felt I could enjoy it, even if the 3rd act as a little "challenging" for me.

Again as per Prey, both films needed a little more character fleshing out for the obvious "these are just cannon fodder" actors to make their deaths actually feel worthwhile.. However, again just like Prey, I'd watch another Franchise film made by this director without any trepidation.
 
ianh said:
This felt like Prey did to the Predator franchise - It's not an "amazing" film by any means but its a competent, "OK" 6/10 film which (thankfully) didn't trash the franchise legacy any further like the last couple of films did so I felt I could enjoy it, even if the 3rd act as a little "challenging" for me.

Again as per Prey, both films needed a little more character fleshing out for the obvious "these are just cannon fodder" actors to make their deaths actually feel worthwhile.. However, again just like Prey, I'd watch another Franchise film made by this director without any trepidation.
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That's a good comparison tbh.

I actually feel as though Romulus might have been better as a mini-series, the attempts at world building are really interesting to me but it felt as though there just wasn't enough time in a movie to really go where they wanted with it. That said, it was an enjoyable watch that felt right for the franchise, one that has been pretty dire movie wise since the second. Granted, the directors cut of 3 is a lot better than the cinematic release but I'd still say this is the best of the movies since 2. Perhaps I'm being more forgiving than I normally would be, but for years now I've been watching beloved franchises get the raw out of the stick and this felt super refreshing to me. I'm still trying to decompress from it a little, but I'd rate it a strong 6 to a 7 out of 10 and that's in no way meant to be detrimental.

I was actually a little surprised that it had a budget of 80m, makes me wonder what the hell is going on with some of the dross coming out that costs considerably more.
 
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Gray2233 said:
I just got back from watching this.

It's a bit of a slow burn, but I liked getting to see the mining/corp planet and world building. The trailer really didn't give away as much as people seem to think, overall it's by far the best movie since Aliens in my opinion. I really enjoyed it, it leaned more toward the horror side of things but handled the material well while offering a few nods toward the other movies. Atmosphere was fantastic, as was the music, I'd absolutely recommend it.
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Agreed , theres probably some clever misdirection in the trailers thats made some spoiler YouTube videos that I've deliberately not watched but saw the titles/thumbnails and thought damnit thats ruined it, but are actually completely off the mark.
 
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Shamikebab said:
Well nobody famous on the cast helps a lot of course
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True enough, par one anyway but I wont spoil anything.

The cast weren't spectacular but they did a fine job tbh, David Jonsson as Andy was the highlight for me.

If those actors in big budget flicks are making mega bucks then it needs to stop imo, I don't think "star power" is the draw it used to be. Especially with all of the pigeonhole leads lacking a diverse history of good movies, half the major Marvel actors are pretty much only known for playing their respective characters. I'd say the age of the movie star is over in some respects, at least with the current generation of bigger names. There's definitely people still capable of it but I'd argue they're mostly the old guard, I'd be shocked if a Tom Cruise movie flopped as an example.
 
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The only thing that bothered me a bit...... and I'm not usually one to pick holes, quite happy to suspend disbelief...... but...

How on earth is this massive bloody Weyland space station that is running a xeno bioengineering lab just floating around up there drifting to its doom, directly over a Weyland planet, full of Weyland people?

The only explanation I guess is that shot of the hooded guy watching the ship take off, hinting that WY have knowingly let them go off on their little escapade.
 
mid_gen said:
The only thing that bothered me a bit...... and I'm not usually one to pick holes, quite happy to suspend disbelief...... but...

How on earth is this massive bloody Weyland space station that is running a xeno bioengineering lab just floating around up there drifting to its doom, directly over a Weyland planet, full of Weyland people?

The only explanation I guess is that shot of the hooded guy watching the ship take off, hinting that WY have knowingly let them go off on their little escapade.
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I wondered at that myself, it's a hell of a coincidence but might be explainable if they use it as a weird corps are bad style testing ground and they intentionally attracted desperate people to see what would happen. I know that I'm reaching with that but I was thinking it a good chunk of the way through, if those kids picked up the signal I find it hard to believe the corps on the planet didn't know about it.

The gestation period was a bit off-putting too, seemed super quick but it's a tad nitpicky and goes back to the lack of time for what they wanted to do that I mentioned earlier.
 
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One thing i did like was that it knits together the earlier films with the lore that is fleshed out in Prometheus and Covenant.

I prefer the purity of the first two with the one xeno type, but the whole bio weapon, hybrid genetics stuff is well established now with some decent justification....and we don't talk about resurrection.
 
One thing that again became a topic of contention was

The gestation time of when the initial lassie was first impregnated and when it was born. It literally took minutes!!

Sorry @Gray2233 notice u already pointed this out.
 
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Shamikebab said:
Probably the worst time to make that claim with Deadpool vs Wolverine currently pulling in huge money though :p
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To be fair, I did point out that it was "almost" and frankly it's a good, intentionally ****** popcorn movie.

That's what comic book movies should be, it's not winning on star power it's building on the success of prior movies but without the utter nonsense we've been seeing. Huge Jackedman was perfect in the role too, which further backs up my point -- everyone and their mother wanted to see him come back but they wanted to see more Wolverine done well rather than a generalised star.
 
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Gray2233 said:
To be fair, I did point out that it was "almost" and frankly it's a good, intentionally ****** popcorn movie.

That's what comic book movies should be, it's not winning on star power it's building on the success of prior movies but without the utter nonsense we've been seeing. Huge Jackedman was perfect in the role too, which further backs up my point -- everyone and their mother wanted to see him come back but they wanted to see more Wolverine done well rather than a generalised star.
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I think it's definitely winning on star power, if they had recast deadpool as an unknown and brought in a new actor to play wolverine it wouldn't have made half what it has. Not to mention all the famous cameos.

Sorry this is somewhat off topic. Can't decide whether to go see this or wait for streaming. Might see next week.
 
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Every rule has an exception however i.e. you can't point at a single film, ignoring the large number of failures and say "see, "star power" still exists. I mean other than Deadpool which has two of the most "likeable" actors in it, what film this year with "star power" has been a box office smash?

These are the ones with "A List" stars which have flopped (didn't make at least 2x their budget so didn't break even) so far this year that I could find after a 30 sec google search -

Madame Web - Sydney Sweeny, Dakota Johnson - Flop
Fly me to the Moon - Scarlett Johansson - Flop
Horizon - Kevin Costner - Flop
Furiosa - Anna Taylor-Joy - Flop
Fall Guy - Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt - Flop
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare - Henry Cavill - Flop
Argylle - Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard - Flop
Borderlands - Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis - Flop
Challengers - Zendaya - Flop
If - Ryan Reynolds - Flop

Lots of "Star Power" A-List names there giving us lots of flops, even one with Ryan Reynolds in there, showing that "Star Power" alone isn't really a big driver for audiences at this time.
 
Shamikebab said:
I think it's definitely winning on star power, if they had recast deadpool as an unknown and brought in a new actor to play wolverine it wouldn't have made half what it has. Not to mention all the famous cameos.

Sorry this is somewhat off topic. Can't decide whether to go see this or wait for streaming. Might see next week.
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Star power based upon consistency, "Jackman is Wolverine" -- you replace him it wouldn't work but the opposite is also true for most actors. Hugh Jackman was actually a tad older and had career prospects outside of that, but what about his fellow Aussie Chris Hemsworth? Can you name a single movie off the top of your head that you've wanted to see because he's in it despite him being a major part of the marvelverse as Thor? What about Chris Evans?

I think people forget that Hugh Jackman is 55 years old, I understand where you're coming from but he's semi-typecast even now. The people I'm talking about are a good 10-20 years younger than he is, he's around the same age as Robert Downey JR who was capable of the "star power" thing but absolutely became type cast as Tony Stark.

It's not the old guard that have been there and done it, they're still a draw to an extent because people view them as overall competent actors. It's the "Marvel" generation types that made it big with those movies, of course this is my opinion and I'm totally accepting of the fact. Even then we see frequent flops, as mentioned by @ianh ! We're past the star era of cinema by a long shot.

That said, I do agree that we shouldn't thread dump on what I feel is a great movie with off topic. If you want to continue the discussion please make a new thread specific to what we're discussing and tag me!
 
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Just got back from watching this. Enjoyed it a lot. Solid addition to the franchise and what felt like the closest one to the original Alien in terms of style. Credits showed animatronics and puppeteers listed so nice to see them using practical effects as well. Anyone else notice the use of CRT's for all displays?
 
Yeah just got back, apart from Reel cinema screens being rather obtuse (you can "see" the screen resonate with the bass from the centre as the speaker is too close to it behind the screen, plus you can see the projector isn't projecting nice black level resulting in dark scenes looking slightly crushed like as if you're watching a movie on an LCD panel which we are all too familiar for those who have OLED monitors/TVs and visit a place that has LCDs or use an LCD monitor!) - The movie was excellent. Great cinematics, acting and action.

Will watch again when the HDR BluRay release is out in proper darkness.
 
mrk said:
Will watch again when the HDR BluRay release is out in proper darkness.
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I did think part way through that it would look fantastic at home on an OLED, with the darkness of the ships and the strobes and lights flashing. Maybe one to watch when the neighbours are out so I can crank up the Atmos for full effect!

I thoroughly enjoyed the film, finally a worthy sequel to the first two. The lighting and sets were great and I loved the soundtrack with little nods to the other films. I was a bit dubious of the cast from the trailers, but Rain and Andy knocked it out of the park. I'd give it a good solid 7/10, that's on a scale where it takes a lot for me to score a film that much. It's definitely satisfied my Alien craving for a bit, kind of like Prey has done for the Predator franchise.
 
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Yup, volume up, lights off, OLED HDR on!

I just want an ALien movie now where they backfill the lore of the Engineers. That will satisfy me muchly.
 
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