Alien Romulus
Directed by Fede Alvarez
Written by Fede Alvarez
Starring Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Reneaux, Isabela Merced
Release Date August 16th, 2024
Published August, 2024
The Alien franchise is just not for me. As a kid, I had the whole thing spoiled for me. First, I saw the Mel Brooks spoof Spaceballs before I ever saw Alien. That meant that the whole chest-burster scene was not nearly as interesting, surprising or effective. Then, there is the whole Ripley is a badass thing. I grew up being told that Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley is a legendary, badass, female action hero. That is simply not the case in the original Alien. That’s not a criticism of the actual character or Weaver’s performance, the cultural reputation of Ripley is not the fault of the movie.
Ripley in the original Alien is a complicated character, a normal woman in an extraordinary situation. Ripley doesn’t morph into an alien fighting hardass until the 3rd act of Aliens, the Alien sequel. And that’s likely where the cultural perception of Ripley comes from. So, again, it’s not a flaw in the movie, it’s an accident of timing, I never got to see Alien or Aliens in the way so many fans got to see it. By the time I saw it, the franchise had penetrated the culture in such a fashion that I had effectively seen the movie without ever actually seeing it. I knew what a Xenomorph, a Chest-Buster, and a Face-hugger were before I knew who Ellen Ripley really was.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.
