With great anticipation and excitement, I went to see Alien: Romulus last night with much hope and expectation that this would be an excellent movie to watch, given a somewhat limited year of films in general. I hoped that I’d be entertained and perhaps even shaken, startled, and jumping in my seat at the thought of this creature doing its worst.
I recall the painful moment of the dinner table scene with John Hurt’s exploding stomach ruining everyone’s space culinary delights as we all watched on our television screens sometime in the very early 80s, when the original Alien film was first broadcast. Now, we look back on that as an absolute classic, laying the groundwork for science fiction horror films ever since. The idea of trapping X number of people in a physically constrained location and having some alien beast eliminate them one by one systematically started with the very first Alien movie, and so many films have followed suit with the same plot and continue to do so today.
H.R. Giger’s incredibly visionary art and a very talented young director with an outstanding cast put together a chilling movie that was high on drama and tension, where the physical effects served their purpose to enhance the movie. It also had a female lead that saved the day.
Flash forward to 1986, and I’m super hyped about the sequel to be directed by another young, talented director, James Cameron. There was so much discussion about the scale, intensity, length, action, and the storyline that takes the first movie and powers it by a factor of 10. I managed to sneak into the cinema pretending to be 18 and watched it at one of the large ABC cinemas in Birmingham on my own with a massive screen and thunderous sound. I was blown away because it kept on ramping up until it reached a mighty crescendo with another powerful ending. It is no surprise that for many, it’s one of their favourite movies of all time, and among movie critics, it was voted as one of the best movies of the 1980s.
Sometime in the early 1990s, a decidedly poor Alien 3 came out, and then a bunch of other Alien movies didn’t really make much sense, nor were they well put together. I don’t even recall watching them because Alien 3 was such a disappointment that I couldn’t bring myself to the cinema again.
However, last night, I was keen. The marketing hype had done its best to raise attention, and the original posters and trailers did their job well. So, what was I expecting, and what did I find? I was expecting a deeply immersive, thought-provoking, expansive, visionary, immaculately produced, acted, and detailed film that took me on a journey of fright and delight, but what I got was something very different. I got a movie that was clearly aimed at a particular younger demographic with an entirely predictable plotline and rather poor character development that rushes through all of the build-up play in milliseconds, leading to a relatively poor finale that effectively made direct references to all of the previous movies (apparently, because I only really recall the first two and they were systematically reproduced). There was no character development and no sense of sympathy or empathy for their plight. Of course, I’m jumping in my seat at the occasional surprise moment, but I am also trying hard not to yawn in between the scenes where I’m expected to absorb the tension, and this is after copious amounts of salted popcorn and caffeinated drinks all aimed at keeping me alert and highly sensitised but failing at every level.
I walked away thinking, Gosh, this was an expensive waste of time, and why did I fall for my own sense of fandom when clearly corporate greed, which ironically was something that was being deeply critiqued within the movie itself, became the movie itself?
The original movie was all about suspense, drama, tension, and the big reveals in terms of the special effects. I remember the trailers for the first film because I used to go to the cinema a lot in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, especially for all those Bond movies and the Trekkie movies and everything else, and the ad was chilling with the tagline, ‘In space, no one can hear you scream’. James Cameron took it to another level with Aliens. All the other movies afterwards were entirely forgettable, and this movie too, sadly, has to be added to that list. I could have waited for it to be available online in a month or so, and so I blame myself for being duped but also for having hope.
Ridley Scott had a role in advising on the production, the direction, and the finalisation of this movie, and he encouraged the director to trim its running time. Having watched Napoleon earlier in the year and being disappointed about it—again because of poor character development, if anything relishing miserabilism beyond all else, with a fast-paced script that was all about quickly executed battle scenes—I think Ridley Scott has lost his magic. I was disappointed by the second Blade Runner movie because it was simply empty. Playing it by the numbers, using past success as a marketing approach, and producing nothing of any memorable value whatsoever. There was a time when films would make you think and stir the imagination and the heart. Perhaps these movies today are simply meant for someone of a different age or a different generation. Perhaps what is being produced and consumed today, such as this latest incarnation of the Alien franchise, is simply not meant for my generation. Oh well, I say to that.
Bring back three-hour-long movies with long, wide shots that are immersive. Bring back character development, bring back some tales of morality, integrity, and the fight that should be the good fight. Bring back the joy of life and the tragedy of our existence. Make me think, make me feel, make me hope, and make me aspire for a better world. Don’t feed me the same old recipe with the same old ingredients that are touched up with a little gloss and shine here and there. Have Hollywood executives completely fallen for the “let’s play it safe and just continue to rake it in” playbook, or are filmgoers happy to be provided cheap fodder that they consider good enough?
In the end, Alien: Romulus feels like a xenomorph itself—a hollow, soulless creation engineered for maximum profit with minimum effort. It lurks in the shadows of its predecessors, occasionally startling us with a jump scare or a nod to nostalgia, but ultimately leaving us cold and unsatisfied. As I left the cinema, I couldn’t help but think that in the vast, dark expanse of modern film, perhaps it’s the audience who can’t be heard screaming for something more substantial, more thought-provoking, more… human.