Seven years separate us from the last Alien. After disappointment Covenant and the Capernaum of the project Prometheus, Partly aborted despite a first cleavage film, nevertheless captivating, the franchise needed a second breath. With Alien: Romulus, the stated objective was clear: to rejuvenate the commercial target and hang up Covenant to the myth by choosing as captain a seasoned director: Fede Álvarez. While a group of young space workers come to the collision of an abandoned space station, they find themselves confronted with the beast born from the tortured imagination of the painter Giger. Did the director, who used to be a reboot director, manage to return the franchise to orbit? Fede Álvarez prides himself on knowing Alien We'll show him he's wrong...
One myth to another
Since Alien (1979), the beast was rooted in collective imagination (and pop culture). Today it is difficult to surprise a seasoned audience. One imagines the mine deconfite of those who discovered for the first time the Xenomorph operation without knowing anything about the film. Bloody rash at the fateful moment when the offspring of the xenomorph are running a path between the organs to snatch out of the thoracic cage of his unfortunate victim. Immediately incubated, immediately condemned during an iconic cinema scene where the actors' reactions were not simulated because they discovered the beast... live! A cleverly guarded secret for a revolutionary idea who even impressed Kubrick. A lesson that reminds us that with a small budget of $11 million, the art of directing lies in imagination more than in the portfolio. Three words on an evasive script, that's all the casting knew when it came to the shooting of the legendary Chestburster scene:
« This thing emerges »
Film punching that deeply recast the figure of modern heroine in horror cinema, Alien Then gave birth to several suites. Afficionados are still fighting to find out whether it is only necessary to consider trilogy (or quadrilogy) and exclude films from the new millennium, others prefer to tear apart to find out who they are. Ridley Scott or James Cameron have been able to propose the best version of the perfect predator. A lot of people finally think the license died with Ellen Ripley and we'd find it hard to contradict them. Clearly the first is a monument and the others have each brought their stone to the building, so that we join the analysis of Sigourney Weaver, queen of the opening ceremony of the Mostra of Venice 2024. She came back to the saga for the magazine. Deadline :
« Alien is perfect. It And Aliens is this big kick-ass movie of scale, which currently has a more conventional story. It's hard to compare them as moviemakers. They are very different. I can say that all four of the Alien filmmakers I worked with all made the material their own. »
Saugrenous debate that scares the canvas, here some even want « rehabilitate » Alien: Covenant who can only be pleased with his introduction punched by unheard of graphic violence... before crashing under his own weight, like an acid bellow!
Promise?
First of all, and in order to understand the bitter criticisms that will follow, it is necessary to situate the preference of the author of his lines and return Romulus relative to the saga. Besides his splendid photograph, Prometheus is no doubt the last film drawn from the extended universe of the franchise that had raised the bar by proposing axes of reflection on transhumanism and the death of God. Ridley Scott evoked themes such as the erosion of faith in the face of science, the creature in front of its creator. This theme is nothing but an elegant SF version of the Gothic novel, Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus. In Prometheus which takes up part of the title of Marie ShelleyThere were several stories embedded with an abyss of synthetics and men on the one hand; men and engineers on the other. After the metaphor of the rapt of the sacred fire, punished by the gods of Olympus in Greek mythology, the mount of Alien 2024 this time lorges on the side of the legend of Romulus and Remus and the foundation of Rome.
It was hoped that Fede Álvarez's choice would compensate for the Disney take over the 21st Century Fox since its acquisition in 2018. The legendary mastodon with prolific licenses was devoured and no doubt this did not encourage the diversity of approaches and editorial choices as for each oligopolistic market (see box below). We will see that this redemption has not spared the substance as the form ofAlien: Romulus Unfortunately.
Disney Domination on the « Big six »
A useful reminder on the Disney group: since the acquisition of Pixar in 2006 and Marvel in 2009, Disney seems to have a bulimic appetite that should alert the American regulator as the oligopolistic situation continues to strengthen. In 2017, with the purchase of the 21st Century Fox for $66.1 billion (including 13.7 billion in debt), Mickey weighed 30% of the market share, the largest Hollywood studio (see diagram below left, source: Box Office Mojo / LeMonde).
In 2023, the Walt Disney Company's worldwide turnover was $88.9 billion. And its expansion is not ready to stop. Despite the mediocrity of his films, Disney recorded 4.86% more gross annual earnings compared to 2022 and his CA was multiplied by 2.6 in 18 years! With this acquisition (the biggest in Disney's history) flagship licenses fell into Disney's giron as Star Wars, Predator, Dead Pool, X-Men, The Planet of Monkeys, Indiana Jones, Avatar, The Simpsons, etc.). For better or worse?
Weared by an advertising campaign to the air of summer compressor roller, Alien: Romulus seeks to bridge the two most popular films of the saga, The eighth passenger and Aliens, the steroid version at unrivalled pace. Romulus and Prometheus They don't only have a name derived from mythology, they now articulate together, even though this unnatural coupler is ripped from the forceps in a last third bank at Álvarez. If you already find that the link between Covenant and Prometheus was clumsy and that the genesis of the Alien confined itself to profane the fantastic mystery, what to say about this new attempt against nature?
Alien is dead, Alien alive
The thrill with legendary 80/90s sagas is to be able to satisfy the fans of the first hour while bringing their own stone to the building. On this point, we feel how much Alien Romulus seeks to check all the boxes of fan service in its least noble meaning of the term (assuming that there is a noble version to want to satisfy groupies). The references sound without really worrying about their consistency in the way they are thrown into the viewer's face. We are not far from a cereal ad that promises us a great plastic toy inside the package when we had already understood the concept very well by looking at the box tap by eye.
Like the productions purchased by Disney's cartel, we feel that we had to fill out a well-marked specifications to bridge the gap between the old stunted breakers of the 1970s and the younger generation who neither grew up nor watched the previous films. This gives an indigestible result where the characters pretend to explain texts completely above ground to explain the abilities of the xenomorph and how to escape it. You'd think you'd see a kitchen recipe applied to an unpredictable living organism. It's all the more missed as movies like Jurassic Park had managed to take the spectator with the Tyrannosaurus and his vision based on movement without falling into the cliché of an Ikea notice. There it falls like a hair on the soup with the facehuggers, all without any effort from the actors to look a little bit worried.
The string of the omniscient synthetic to explain each situation friezes the ridiculous and breaks any ability of the spectator to interpret (and therefore doubt) as to the chances of survival of the crew. It's simple, Fede Álvarez never trusts the good intelligence of the public, one of the markers of any Disney production. Each scene suffers from this explanatory heaviness, also doubly ankylosed by a ubiquitous OST and which, again, seeks to dictate our emotions. On the other hand, we are subjected to the same reference baton that sweeps the whole quadrilogy... What a disappointment when the introduction of Romulus cultivated the same religious silence of the space from which the title of the film arose. One fraud can hide another. It's not just the work of Benjamin Wallfisch (composer of the excellent OST of Blade Runner 2049) or bad bill, on the contrary, but it's because it's tone-on-tone with the images displayed on the screen while pulling too much on the nostalgic rope until in the songs titles. Hence it is part of the lack of identity of RomulusThere's only one step...
Make everyone happy (so nobody)
What a pity to recite the lesson in such a scholastic and grossly spitting way, where others like Cameron, Find or Young (see our Interview) had each managed to bring their signature, sometimes at the price of different muscles with Fox as with an audience not always acquired at its turnarounds. But this is not the only trap that Fede Álvarez falls into. No doubt anxious to respond to a generation that is said to be bottled with short-lived videos and the capacities to soon be able to compete with those of a goldfish, the director seems obsessed with the idea of keeping his spectator awake. For the young audience with beautiful images that shake like shadows in Plato's cave, and for the old degarnis who will soon break their PER to cure their Alzheimer, by lines of dialogue directly drawn from the previous films.
The dacmé point is reached with the encounter of a certain synthetic inseparable from the universe of franchise, become caricature, in addition to being completely missed in terms of special effects. Addressing the elders at this point as idiots confirms that Romulus is above all a product formatted before being a work. A pure merchant object like postmodernity in raffole. Has Álvarez forgotten that to make foot with elegance, still it must be under the table...
All this gives rise to a succession of scenes of inappropriate speed, not to mention a montage that did not understand what made the salt of Ridley Scott's raw horror or Cameron's action. Aliens is a little what it is Resident Evil 2 facing his illustrious model Resident Evil 1. Or the shade between Survival Horror and Action Horror. Álvarez seems unable to decide between these two visions. Instead of allowing the spectator time to soak up the heavy atmosphere of space, the Uruguayan director cuts scenes to move faster from one situation to another. Whether it's the arrival on the ship or the encounter with aliens under valium in a corridor, it's a failure to raise anxiety.
In the face of a horde of xenomorphs that arise from ceilings, what a mistake it is to have this plan followed by another one overlooking the adjacent room, without knowing why or how our heroes managed to get out. Silence is outlawed and the duo must be stuffed quietly speaking about the situation by displacing lines of dialogue as subtle as a Chat GPT script. We're years away from the harassment of Cameron's creatures where every door was to be sealed for just a few minutes of respite.
This scene where our heroes are facing the xenos, is typically the type of sequence where it would have been necessary to stick to the characters with a transeling or tight shots on these young crowds. Without military armament (and still), seeing the alien is the assurance of already being dead. This is what all the previous films were based on with characters literally petrified by fear. Contrary to the logic of jump scares, horror is expected with the motion sensor for example. But Alien is almost always invisible. Here, none of this or so little.
Chou. Andy... tell me yes...
Another spring that Fede Álvarez royally ignores to generate fear: loneliness. A factor that had been integrated Alien: Isolation To his title. To increase tension, one of the narrative elements that always flies is to isolate the characters from each other, which amplifies the predation ratio. This was the case in Alien first of the name where the xenomorph meticulously officiates like a serial killer, the primary bestiality in addition. Same in all his suites. But in RomulusOn the contrary, and to our greatest disarray, we have to stuff with the naughty jokes of the Android Andy to his human sister throughout the movie when he doesn't take his beat dog pout.
Thanks to Toto's cyborg jokes that breaks any possibility of stress. You smell like fiber. feel good of the latest Star Wars. A process afflicting good feelings and repulsive of first choice to keep the spectator away from horror. These blagounettes at the C-3PO are not intended to bring together characters in history but to reassure the public. Two characters, it is also the assurance of having a permanent text explanation when the staging folds under the weight of unnecessary dialogues. The Disney touch, certainly. Fear, however, first feeds on the imagination as Ridley Scott also understood:
« The Alien refers to what worries the human being most, that part of the shadow that hides in us, and that should not be there. »
The disturbing strangeness
Excellent game Alien: Isolation He had very well understood the tracking and claustrophobia of the saga by opting for a first person and endless passages of mechanics to open a door or operate a piston, like the very first flap. Subjective view that we find elsewhere when Ripley seeks to join Parker and Lambert in the version dAlien Scott. An experience of loneliness among the most challenging of video games and far beyond. Out of the field, the player could hear the beast slipping into our backs before disengaging in the first person. None of this... We travel with a disconcerting ease in the corridors of this space wreck. Amazing about an abandoned shuttle...
The maze, however, is inseparable from Giger's imagination, which the directors of quadrilogy understood very well. Giger had already had the opportunity to explain the origin of his paintings representing the Wells (1966). As the queen of the nightmare, the stairs crossed the history of Art and Giger also entered this vein between Piranesi, Duchamp and Escher.
It is from his tormented dreams that the Swiss artist would have fed this obsession of stairways without ramps, perilous and steep which can be found in the countless scales and mazes of the ships of the previous films. Giger translated these night wanderings in a clear way: « Since I draw these imaginary wells, the window of my dreams is permanently closed ». The painter of the macabre also recounted how his cellar was a source of fantasy, while it was connected by vaulted passages which, « from the episcopal palace, extended, crossing the Rebberg, to the city ». Because of the collapse, this passage was condemned and the door locked forever, which attracted Giger's imagination:
« In my dreams, however, these corridors were accessible and led to an immense maze, in which all kinds of dangers were watching me. »
The maze of Álvarez is on the contrary too marked, the superficial obstacles. Of course, he tries to a little verticality in his last third with the friendly scene of the elevator but in general, you never really feel lost in this pirate ship. It's more like we're seeing snippets from previous films ravaged by a not very happy editing. All this is sorely lacking in identity, warmth and sweat. Moreover, there is something curiously not very credible with this young crew of « Workers ». Without necessarily falling into the stereotype of calous hands, it is hard to see space proletarians, let alone slave hostages of the multinational Weyland-Yutani Corporation. These protagonists are introduced together during a quick brainstorming without even giving us time to appreciate their skills where Aliens (also him) suggested in a few planes the characters of each between two bidasse replicas.
A film caught up with its own legacy
Another comparison that is not to the benefit of Álvarez, the game Aliens: Dark Descent who perfectly managed to show the ephemeral character of the life of our marines, overwhelmed by the alien swarms. That too, Álvarez didn't understand. Even the transitions to 0 gravity – one of the few ideas « original » of the Romulus – are a thousand times less successful than games like Dead Space. Ideas, there were shovels in the video game to play with body attraction. The terrifying epilogue ofAlien: Isolation He also demonstrated, with an exit into space that made us hold our breath until the apoplexy. No sound, nothing, if this is the direct application of the famous maxim of the saga: « In space, no one will hear you scream ». The franchise now seems to be caught up in its own legacy.
It's really not to have understood anything about what made the salt of quadrilogy, where tension climbed crescendo. By seeking to reproduce and pay homage to each of the salient scenes of the saga, inevitably Romulus suffers from comparison. It's nice to have nice promotional posters but it's better to have a solid film. Another sad example is the arrival in the hive ofAliens : this passage was years light from that of Romulus which, moreover, appears to be too short and therefore not conducive to credibility. The same is true for the evolution of the beast with another comparison that makes a blemish when one thinks of the rise in power of the xenomorph in the film of Fincher for example. And I wouldn't even mention the last failed one that echoes the original beast.Alien, the Resurrection. I still had the chilling memory of the cry of pain and betrayal that came from the guts of the hybrid devoured by the emptiness of space, while I would soon forget the finale of RomulusIf not already done.
Add to this little inspired decors and often very poor and otherwise less organic than those of previous opus. Who knows the universe of Giger knows how much biomechanics occupy a central place there. This mixture of flesh and metal, both viscous and lubricated, finds its most brilliant representation in the image of its walls which mingle with the secretions of aliens and bodies ready to be incubated and soon given as pasture. Biomechanical is the inability to discern the being of the machine as Cameron did so well in Aliens with these petrified human cocoons in the walls of the colony.
It is also this forced marriage between sex and death which gave an even more unhealthy aspect to the capture of the girl Newt in the Aliens, adding a pedophile overlay. Alien It's rape and dispossession of our own body. Beyond the sexual metaphor, it is one of the most radical vectors of horror: becoming alien to oneself. However, Romulus is far from this organic architecture that proliferates and gradually contaminates the ship. Worse still, he doesn't give us time to believe it. Rape is not just a weight at the time of the act but a burden that one bears. Trauma such as an inverted pregnancy that must be expelled into pain. Missed opportunity with pregnant woman Romulus which, besides being perfectly useless to the plot, is eclipsed almost out of field. Here again, you have to look at the video game side and more precisely at the excellent Scorn (read our folder) to find this unhealthy atmosphere that sticks to Giger's skin like previous films.
Afraid to scare?
New incomprehensible pitfall, the characters are never possessed by fear, while the panicked soldier ofAliens is one of the voltage catalysts. Same in Alien, where the climax of horror was reached when Lambert and Parker died. Their face is distorted by terror, almost like the painting of Cree Munch. And the stress is accentuated by a cross-hunt with Ripley, who attends their death by radio. A few seconds later, Alien disappeared, passed out in the shadow and immediately took refuge in our subconscious. Only the corpses still bore witness to his passage.
The very image of horror is that of the mouth of the beast dripping through torrents of saliva. It's Pavlov's reflex to his climax. Luckily, on this point Fede Álvarez comes out with the honours on the few broad planes of the Alien, even if these scenes would have gained in intensity with an involved staging and characters that show a little more brain to survive. A pitfall in relation to the unrivalled involvement of the USCSS crew Alien, the eighth passenger. A collective performance of actors engaged as if their lives were at stake and probably one of the best roles of Sigourney Weaver who explains in part his lion gold awarded to the Mostra of Venice Yesterday.
« In Alien, I always wonder how to stay alive. »
By definition, the Alien is amazing and if it is captured, it is to escape better as in Alien, the Resurrection when the caged beast kills its congener so that its acid blood opens a passage to the lower levels. L RomulusHe doesn't seem fundamentally smarter than any other predator. His bestiality remains but this disturbing strangeness which made him a distant cousin of man seems more in retreat here.
Fear was also that of Ripley, who advanced cautiously, inflaming every corner from which a monster might appear in Cameron's film. The spectator's imagination took over, scrutinizing each corridor illuminated by the flames and fearing that a creature would emerge from the dark, an original and primary fear that everyone knew little. Even the first encounter with facehuggers leaves almost indifferent in Romulus. Why? Simply because the characters are entitled to a second chance. Whatever the previous films, the encounter with these parasites was always a monument of tension, where in extremis the characters were saved by a teammate, if he was not condemned. There, two three strokes of windmills in the air and our heroes come out with honors to push back a whole swarm. What a cruel lack of imagination...
Fede Álvarez finally made an unforgivable mistake, icing on the Disney Touch cake that we love so much, making one of his creatures smile sadism. By choosing this human-specific register, again, manicheism and good feelings simmer in horror. The Alien is neither good nor bad, it is a perfect predator. Point. His offspring, whatever they may be, should follow this same logic rather than formally indicate a wicked one. For all his reasons, Fede Álvarez understood the legend of the Alien only on the surface. Let's not go four ways, stress is completely absent from the film. When you see what's done Neil Blomkamp with limited means for his short film ZygoteYet there was something to do. It's hard to know if it's freedom of tone or audacity that's missing Álvarez here.
In making a tribute film, he only denatures the xenomorph to make it a monster all that is more generic, which explains this somewhat inflamed request. But if we think a little bit, what is it? Romulus Do better than those predecessors? The answer is in one word. Nothing. Audacious would be the one who would answer the opposite. Worse still, it is merely a product derived from the memories of old films and it even manages to upset us. We will recommend you to play the excellent Alien: Isolation or unbelievable Scorn for those who haven't played yet. Released almost ten years ago, the game of Creative Assembly He understood everything. The same applies to devsEbb Software. One will always prefer the cankers to the bright mind than the first ones in the class who never did anything but reproduce what they had been taught. A mediocre movie after Covenant comes to add a little gravât on the grave of the saga. Let the xenomorph wander through the limbs of space and our subconscious that Giger's beast has always sought to colonize.
All our articles to read about Giger's beast from the movie at the JV
Subscribe
Connection
0 Remarks
oldest
