Alien: Romulus (2024)

It's the year 2142 and apparently nothing much changes in this 'Alien' universe. Another team of misfits must run around the dark tight corridors of a ship battling aliens and a female is the hero...again, because they just can't move away from that one novel move made by Scott back in 1979 apparently.

So for this little rant I'm just gonna go through my thoughts in a checklist-type fashion because I think it will be easier. The plot you say? Well, there's a bunch of misfits that board this mysterious abandoned ship. Whilst poking around they accidentally let facehuggers loose which leads to aliens and in the end the female and the synthetic are the heroes again, originality eh.

The original 'Alien' film was set in the year 2122 when the creature was presumably killed by getting toasted in the engines of the Nostromo escape shuttle and then drifting off into deep space. But low and behold in our current age where nothing is sacred we find out that the Xenomorph can actually survive in deep space by somehow cocooning itself and it didn't die after all! What kind of species would know how to evolve to survive in the cold radioactive vacuum of deep space? This one apparently. So does this mean there's an alien Queen cocooned out in deep space somewhere? Anyway, the evil Weyland-Yutani company manages to find it (did it not drift off into deep deep space then?), try to experiment on it again, and end up getting all their people killed. Thus leaving a ghost ship floating in space.

Said ghost ship manages to float right into the orbit of a planet with a Weyland-Yutani mining colony on it yet somehow not get detected at all...except by this bunch of misfits. Said bunch of misfits are yet again a perfectly balanced diverse team of young men and women of various ethnic backgrounds, just like reality. Oh and for some reason most of them are cockney's, why? Cos Scott is British I guess? I dunno.

We learn that our female lead character Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is very close to synthetic Andy (David Jonsson), Andy is her surrogate brother. But when Andy has to have an internal disc in his head exchanged for another synthetic he becomes a completely different android and sides with Weyland-Yuntani showing that he cannot really be trusted unless he has the correct disc in his head. Its not Andy, it's really just down to a specific disc in his head. All this should really tell Rain not to get overly connected to Andy, not to get so emotional over him because he is clearly just a machine. But she does, to the point where she risks her own life and others just to save Andy. This is the first time we see a synthetic in this universe switch in this fashion. Change the disc and they can go from kind to emotionless in the blink of an eye which makes them feel way more disposable in my opinion. Why would anyone care about them?

Also, why are these synthetics so super strong? And why do they have such super fast reactions? To the point that they can take out facehuggers mid-leap. I know we saw Bishop showcasing his super fast skills in 'Aliens' but I never really understood why they would be able to do this. They're just androids, not supermen.

We meet another synthetic called Rook who is the same model as Ash from the original film. This model is the rank of science officer and apparently way more untrustworthy and dedicated to Weyland-Yutani than Andy's model. Still not really sure why a company like Weyland-Yutani would have such wildly different looking synthetics for different roles. Like why is the Andy model Black and the others White? Unfortunately the character of Rook is an AWFUL CGI monstrosity which is supposed to look like Ian Holm. Was that the best they could do??

In this film we see how the alien's acidic blood melts its way through the entire hull of a ship with deadly results. This happens a few times. The question is why have we not seen this happen before in any other alien encounters in any other film? We also again see the ridiculous lack of continuity with the gestation period of the alien species. In the original film Scott had this process take time, building suspense. Well not anymore as it all happens within five minutes, yet again.

There's an action sequence where Rain fends off a swarm of aliens using a pulse rifle in zero gravity. Sounds cool right? Sure, but the reason for this was so the acidic alien blood turned into a gloopy substance floating around the corridors. This then enabled Rain and Andy to navigate their way through it more easily. Original? Yes. Ridiculous? Yes. There is no way that would have made it easier to get through the corridors as the blood would simply be everywhere after getting splattered with gunfire. No way they would have been able to avoid all that blood. This also leads me to a small moment where Andy leaps on top of an alien whilst blasting it to pieces with his pulse rifle. So now the acidic blood doesn't matter?? Sheesh!

To top it all off we have yet another horrendous alien newborn sequence (because we all wanted another repeat of that idea). And Rain then manages to kill off said newborn in virtually a beat for beat remake of the finale from the original 'Alien' film, bar a few changes obviously. So no one was bothered by all this? No deja vu??

I have so many thoughts here, it's really hard. This is by no means a bad film, and it's definitely not the worst in the 'Alien' franchise. In fact, I'd say this is actually one of the better 'Alien' films, definitely better than 'Alien Resurrection' and the 'AvP' movies. Being a Ridley Scott production everything looks incredible, like all his films. The attention to detail is phenomenal. This world looks lived in and just incredible. Highly authentic looking, everything looks like it could actually work or do something. All the small callbacks to previous films, the little touches on set details, computer screen readouts, vehicles, costumes etc...The film is set in between 'Alien' and 'Aliens', and visually, tech-wise, sound-wise, it's all absolutely spot on, perfect, faultless.

The problem comes with originality and the plot. The plot is as basic as it gets and offers nothing. The characters are all the same predictable types and having the last man standing be a female yet again is becoming a bit of a joke now. Yes it was unique with Sigourney Weaver and Ripley but that's been done now, it was also done in 'Prometheus' and 'Covenant', time for change methinks. But overall, despite this film looking terrific, once again it feels more like a greatest hits compilation in better definition and with new faces. There are SO many moments in this film that are simply taken from all the others its quite unbelievable. Essentially take bits from 'Alien', 'Aliens', 'Alien 3', the godawful newborn idea from 'Alien Resurrection', chuck in some black goo and voilà!

This film felt more like a necessity in order to sort out the convoluted mess left behind by the failed 'Prometheus' and 'Covenant' films. Hence why this films plot does link with the black goo in order to try and explain what the hell has been going on. But had those films actually made sense and done well I doubt this film would exist because there would be no need for it. 

6/10

Civil War (2024)

 

Hey remember when Kirsten Dunst was a cute young actress? Yeah, seems like a lifetime ago doesn't it? But anyway, what's this flick about then? A prediction for the outcome of the 2024 election? 

Right so there isn't really that much to explain when it comes to the plot of this film. The US of A is currently under the control of an apparent authoritarian President and administration which is set to govern for a third term (the US President can only have two terms, hence the authoritarian bit I guess). But never fear, the combined Western forces of California and Texas are here to save the day! Not sure what the rest of America is up to during this spat but there you go. This film follows a small group of journalists who are on their way to try and interview the President in Washington as said Western Forces are closing in on the Capitol.

This film came out at a time when politics and the public mood in the US, leading up to the Trump vs Harris 2024 election, were at boiling point. So good marketing there I guess. Director Alex Garland had stated that the film was in no way supposed to be leaning one way or the other politically and definitely wasn't supposed to try and influence voters, riiiiight. I mean hey, come on, this is just my opinion but this was clearly a political statement surrounding Trump and his previous four year term, and the potential for his next four year term.

I found this film quite odd frankly...and somewhat triggering truth be told. For starters, the idea that the State of California and Texas would join forces to battle the Federal government (which is clearly conservative) is quite simply ludicrous. What about the other Western liberal States like Oregon and Washington? We are told that the current administration are authoritarian but we are not told why. Are they really or is this the liberal Democrat view on authoritarianism? We also learn that the Western Forces are secessionists, which in my book would kinda make them the extremist party in this story, the bad guys perhaps. But the Western Forces are obviously meant to be the good guys as we follow the plot from their viewpoint as the main characters follow their side. So I feel we don't really get a level playing field overall.

So we don't really know what the current POTUS has actually done to trigger this Western insurrection and we aren't told what the Western Forces are actually wanting. Yeah they wanna depose the President but with what intentions? As I said we don't really know who to root for here. The main characters also offer no real insights into the story or themselves amazingly. Dunst plays a war-hardened journalist who has PTSD from her previous travels. She wants to interview the President and at the same time is mentoring a young conflict journalist wannabe played by Cailee (Kayleigh?) Spaeny who is wet behind the ears and trying to toughen up in the face of much violence. Pound shop Pedro Pascal Wagner Moura is a journalist working with Dunst's character to interview the President. And Stephen McKinley Henderson is the elder mentor journalist in the group who doesn't need to be in the story. He's there for a predictable emotional death scene. Oh and two foreign born Americans turn up halfway through the story for no other reason other than to have a scene involving racism and America-first nationalism, because of course.

The story unfolds much like any war film whose point of view is from a specific soldier, usually fresh in the field. The small group travel from one harrowing emotional moment to the next in their 4X4. Each one is obviously supposed to toughen up the naive young journalist for her big predictable emotional finale where she finally sees through the blood and gore. It's pretty obvious that Dunst's character will also die seeing as she literally discusses the possibility with her young apprentice at the start. Said harrowing moments aren't actually that harrowing really, I've seen worse. It's all as you would expect, rogue groups of militia doing illegal things, bit of racism, moral quandaries, life being cheap etc...Highly predictable stuff.

The real meat of the dish comes towards the finale as the team join with Western Forces to storm the White House. This plays out much like any other Gerald Butler action flick and I had to keep reminding myself that it's actually supposed to be a serious dramatic sequence. The heroic (?) Western Forces storming the White House taking out hordes of secret service and various other forces still loyal to the evil (Republican) President. They murder any White House staff left alive, literally! Which again got me questioning who was supposed to be the good guys in this story. Eventually they crash the Oval office, drag the begging President out from under his desk, get him to beg a bit more, then execute him with extreme prejudice! They then pose with his corpse over the end credits! Geez!!

Now again, call me crazy, call me a conspiracy theorist, call me controversial etc...but to me this entire sequence played out like a Democrat wet dream. The whole notion of storming the White House to drag the current (supposed) authoritarian President (obviously Trump) out from under his desk like a snivelling coward (maximum humiliation) and then throw his ass in jail is exactly what many left-leaning people actually wanted to see happen (going by social media). Hell the Democrats spent most of 2024 trying to throw Trump in jail via any means possible so some elements of this film aren't too far-fetched.

I found this film highly amusing with its predictable cliches and generic plot. The only surprise being California and Texas joining forces which just seemed like a move to try and not make the plot look like left vs right. Essentially, think of 'Apocalypse Now' but nowhere near as good or harrowing with bizarrely poor musical choices and you're kinda along the right lines. Everything was so obvious, I literally had a checklist of cliches and tropes in my head that were mostly all ticked off as the film progressed. Add to that the fact that everyone and everywhere claims this film wasn't influenced by any current day politics is just laughable. I think people just didn't want to acknowledge the obvious. This is essentially what the Democrats thought was gonna happen at the end of Trump's first term back in 2020. Anyway, the film was well directed, well made, and well shot without breaking the bank, but overall it's incredibly generic with a vague plot and characters.

4/10

Oliver Twist (1948)

 

So I thought I knew the Dickensian tale of Oliver Twist and his misadventures in London, turns out I didn't. I guess I should have read the book instead of relying on one film.

The one film I refer to is of course the British 1968 Carol Reed directed 'Oliver Twist'. I grew up with this classic 68 version and I always thought the film's plot was accurate. So I was quite surprised to discover that, low and behold, that film's plot does actually remove some important parts, mostly an entire character named 'Monks'.

The character of Monks was Twist's half-brother, and with Fagin's help, he wanted to get rid of the boy so he could get his hands on Mr Brownlow's (his father) entire inheritance. In this classic 1948 David Lean directed version, Brownlow is Twist's grandfather (for some reason) which makes things a bit more complicated. I also found it somewhat odd how Monks is able to find Twist after his birth, seeing as I'm guessing Twist's mother ran away to the workhouse (?). How did he know where she went? And when Twist ran away to London, how did Monks find him? Was Monks always in cahoots with Fagin prior to all this? The book may fill these blanks in but in this 48 film these things aren't explained.

The introduction of Monks definitely got me reaching for good old Wiki that's for sure. As for the rest of the plot, it's pretty much as you would expect or know of. There are the odd inclusions that you don't get in the classic 68 stage adaptation such as Twist's mother reaching the workhouse and giving birth. Brownlow and Mr. Grimwig debating whether or not Twist will return from the bookshop. The arrest of Fagin and the murder of Nancy etc...

It is actually quite amusing how the well-regarded Reed version plays out almost identically to this earlier Lean version, comparing the two side by side (seeing as I know the 68 version very well). On the visual side of things the 48 film is, as you would expect, top dollar. Whilst many of the locations are quite obviously sets with large painted backdrops, very nice sets they are indeed. The attention to detail is astonishing from the brickwork right down to all the muck and grime. Although it is a little amusing watching the characters march up and down the same street in front of St. Paul's multiple times (they got their money's worth outta that!). Everything is beautifully atmospheric and really pops off the screen with the depth and contrast that only black and white film can offer. The dark foreboding alleys of London look creepier. The dirt looks grittier. The skies look angrier. Overall everything has a greater sense of importance and weight that really engages you, you feel the dark cold lashing rain as Twist's mother staggers towards the workhouse though thick mud.

Naturally the acting and casting are fantastic despite the fact I barely know any of the stars. Obviously I know and love Robert Newton and I can literally not think of another person that could play Sikes better, other than Oliver Reed of course ( that guy was darn intimidating!). Hearing Newton speak instantly reminded me of his role in 'Treasure Island', yes his dialect and tone are amusingly similar. The rest of the cast is superb even if slightly more lowkey than the 68 version. I didn't really get much sense of urgency or danger with this version's casting (typical of older movies). Even Newton was relatively calm as Sikes. It's all the background players that impress. Everyone looks and sounds so authentic, any lines are clear, and the old fat rich blokes look just that. Call out to Peter Bull and his enormous head and facial features. Also, another shout out to Anthony Newley as Dodger, a costar alongside Peter Bull in the 1967 'Doctor Dolittle'.

I have to admit I didn't really like the visual representation of Fagin (Alec Guinness almost unrecognisable) here. Doing some research I can see they actually made Fagin out to look almost exactly the same as the character does in an old 1889 drawing. Alas, this representation is somewhat of an offensive caricature of an elderly Jewish man on one hand. On the other hand the makeup effects used on Guinness are really quite nasty and ugly, his lips looked all wrong to me. I don't think this was deliberately trying to make the caricature worse, I just think it was bad makeup, they tried too hard and went over the top. Whilst Guinness does the job very well, the character almost comes across like a monster, a troll or goblin, whereas Ron Moody's portrayal was more of a lighthearted goofy peasant, jester, or trickster. I'm sure the 48 version is more accurate but I personally enjoyed the 68 portrayal.

Take a drink every time I mention the 68 version. Yeah it's hard not to compare these two excellent films, especially seeing as both are virtually identical. The grand finale is also exceedingly similar right down to the quite bizarre way half of London seems to join in on the hunt for Sikes. I always found that somewhat ridiculous. There's a murder, everyone hears about it and apparently knows Fagin, they all follow Bullseye, and suddenly there's a massive lynch mob stomping down the narrow cobbled streets baying for justice (or blood). The haunting end for Sikes is much darker if you ask me, you don't actually see anything, but you hear it, more is less.

My final thoughts? What happened to Fagin and his boys?? Obviously one can find out in the actual book but in this film we don't find out. Fagin is arrested, as is Monks (thanks to Nancy), and both are presumably sent to jail; but all of Fagin's boys just disappear, presumably to carry on in their thieving ways. It's nice to see what happened to Bumble and his other half in this version. All that aside I really enjoyed this somewhat grim and dismal, yet lighthearted approach to Dicken's classic. Apparently this version essentially influenced everything else that followed and you can definitely see that. Is this the best version though? Well that's a tough question. This film is certainly more faithful to the original source material but it does lack some dramatic oof at times. The 68 musical is leaner (eh eh) on accuracy yet much more impactful and emotional at times. Both have their pros and cons but for me the eerie black and white might just pip the musical at the finish line. Photo finish though.

9/10

Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match (2023)

 

The fourth instalment of this pretty nifty adult animated series based on the Mortal Kombat franchise, and arguably the least known.

This time around the plot is an origins tale for superstar Johnny Cage, somehow one of the most popular characters in the game franchise. Cage is a Hollywood action star and is trying to make a big splash with his latest action vehicle offering. After his costar Jennifer Grey (yes that Jennifer Grey) goes missing, Cage pops around to her place only to get tangled up in a battle with two mysterious women. This in turn starts to lead Cage down a dark path involving demons, scrolls, Gods, and monsters where it is revealed to him that his life and career has been a set up for some devious Netherrealm plot.

The big notable change for this fourth entry is again the art style. This time we are treated to a vivid, almost cell-shaded type of look with a heavy Miami Vice-esque neon sheen that we've seen utilised in many videogames. If you think of GTA: Vice City and that now overused retro synthwave sunset backdrop that became very popular in recent years (they actually use this in the credits), then you'll know what I'm talking about. There are also more regular animated sections with flashbacks and as the story unfolds things do get darker and less hyper 80's. Overall the visuals are very impressive and enjoyable much like the previous three entries.

Plot wise things start off a bit slow in my opinion. At first I was getting a little bored as things played out. The whole usual schtick of Johnny Cage the superstar with him having a massive ego whilst being goofy wasn't of much interest. I have never really been interested in Cage as a character. In typical 80's action fest fashion Cage gets a nerdy sidekick to add some normalcy and comedic relief to proceedings which is okay...I guess, nothing to shout about. The story is also narrated by Cage throughout in a very Deadpool/Ryan Reynolds-type fashion which feels more like copying more than anything.

Admittedly as the plot thickened I did find myself getting more engaged. Not that it was anything totally original or anything but it did slowly get my attention. I did like the few plot twists as various characters Cage knows turn out to be demons trying to lure him to his bloody fate; and I can't deny the entire finale involving the sacrifice and inevitable grand fisticuffs was good fun.

Speaking of fisticuffs, blood and gore, is there any this time around? Does this entry keep up with the claret spreading? Yes, yes it does, although the majority of it doesn't really kick in until the second half. The first half of this movie feels much more like a homage to your corny 80's action-hero vehicles of yore. You know the stuff, your typical Mel Gibson/Eddie Murphy/Kurt Russell/Dolph Lundgren affairs. But as the movie slowly progresses it starts to become more of what you would expect, a much darker with horror aspects throughout. Indeed, there is also a nice sinister BDSM vibe going on towards the finale which I did enjoy muchly (he says with a cheeky smile across his face). I should point out, the actual final fight between Cage and Shinnok was cheesy as hell, but it was also meant to be like that.

What can I say about this? It's a super turbo homage to everything 80's in the action genre, so much so it's almost vomit-inducing. The mullet Cage sports, his huge earrings, the vehicles, the snappy smart-ass dialogue, the gaudy visuals, right down to the Kenny Loggins-esque end credits soundtrack. All of this was obviously a deliberate choice and whilst it undoubtedly completes what it set out to do 100%, at this point in time the whole 80's homage angle is a tad tired. This particular direction has been well and truly miked. I have enjoyed all of these animated flicks and this last one is probably at the bottom of the list to be honest. Whilst it was solid it just wasn't as engaging as the previous three, at least not until the finale, but before that this just kinda felt like slick videogame cutscenes stitched together. But yeah, 80's overdose dude!

5.5/10