(no subject)
Made it to the movies! Ended up not doing a double feature, though, and also ended up not seeing one of the movies I was thinking about seeing. I'd been looked at Afraid and Trap, which both look like solidly mediocre horror flicks and aren't ages long. So, might still double feature those another day. I gave some thought to tomorrow but I want to do some deep cleaning to finish off the weekend and spending four hours at the theater isn't really conductive to that, lol.
Anyway, I saw Alien: Romulus, which I'd somehow overlooked on the list of available movies. I feel like I'm probably missing some stuff because I haven't seen Prometheus or Covenant-- Alien is not a franchise I'm interested in prequels for, tbh-- but I enjoyed it a lot! The story beats, especially in the final act, skewed just a liiittle too close to the first two movies but I think there was a solid effort to make those beats this movie's own. There was one death that I found myself a little annoyed by because of this, though. It felt like the character was killed off to recreate the feeling of a specific situation we've seen before and while I wouldn't go so far as to say it was out of place in this movie, it did make it feel like an afterthought.
The effects, both digital and practical, are overall really well-done and certain scenes in particular are honestly gorgeous. I am off-put by one effect in particular, though. They digitally recreate an actor's likeness and to begin with, it just does not look good. I don't like that they went for that at all, tbh, especially since it felt unnecessary to the plot and character even though I could see what they were going for by doing so. I also had shrugged it off at the time as something the actor might have okayed but then I was reminded he died four years ago and, yeah, that did put a damper on my enjoyment.
On the whole, though, loved it. The atmosphere was top notch and the pacing was tight enough that it didn't feel like a two-hour watch. Lots of tension, good kills, characters I (mostly) wanted to see make it even when I knew most of them wouldn't. The story does some very interesting stuff with the one synth character, though I do think it hews into some unintentionally uncomfortable territory. Idk on that, though, might just be that I need to ponder it over a little more. I also did not have implied incest on my Alien bingo card but I guess that's hardly the worst thing that happens, so.
Anyhow, yeah, overall a strong recommend!
Anyway, I saw Alien: Romulus, which I'd somehow overlooked on the list of available movies. I feel like I'm probably missing some stuff because I haven't seen Prometheus or Covenant-- Alien is not a franchise I'm interested in prequels for, tbh-- but I enjoyed it a lot! The story beats, especially in the final act, skewed just a liiittle too close to the first two movies but I think there was a solid effort to make those beats this movie's own. There was one death that I found myself a little annoyed by because of this, though. It felt like the character was killed off to recreate the feeling of a specific situation we've seen before and while I wouldn't go so far as to say it was out of place in this movie, it did make it feel like an afterthought.
The effects, both digital and practical, are overall really well-done and certain scenes in particular are honestly gorgeous. I am off-put by one effect in particular, though. They digitally recreate an actor's likeness and to begin with, it just does not look good. I don't like that they went for that at all, tbh, especially since it felt unnecessary to the plot and character even though I could see what they were going for by doing so. I also had shrugged it off at the time as something the actor might have okayed but then I was reminded he died four years ago and, yeah, that did put a damper on my enjoyment.
On the whole, though, loved it. The atmosphere was top notch and the pacing was tight enough that it didn't feel like a two-hour watch. Lots of tension, good kills, characters I (mostly) wanted to see make it even when I knew most of them wouldn't. The story does some very interesting stuff with the one synth character, though I do think it hews into some unintentionally uncomfortable territory. Idk on that, though, might just be that I need to ponder it over a little more. I also did not have implied incest on my Alien bingo card but I guess that's hardly the worst thing that happens, so.
Anyhow, yeah, overall a strong recommend!