It might not be the worst Alien film, but it is close. The crux of the film is that it wants to be a sequel to the Prometheus movie, and it needs to be a classic "recognizably" trademarked Alien franchise film. It wants to be different, yet it needs to be the same. Unsurprisingly, it fails at either these demands and ends up being a jumbled mess in between, satisfying only God knows whom.
In light of this film, it must be said that Prometheus was actually doing something noteworthy. That note might not have been very high, and I loathe Scott's pseudo-religious commentary in all his movies; but Prometheus at least can stand on its own. It's arguably original and unique. It is very dumb and forced, but it is attempting to deliver larger ideas. It attempts world building and distinct characters. It had neat sci-fi ideas, some more interesting than others, and the plot made sense more or less.
Here, these same issues are compounded by a plot that is nonsensical. It feels like it was written in reverse. By a cold calculating machine almost, devoid of any semblance of human emotion. It is as if it was written by the evil android in the film. Indeed, every human is incredibly underwritten while the androids have more fleshed personalities. But that is beside the point really. The human characters only exist to serve as meat fodder for the scenes that need to happen. In all the scenes, any of them. It is as if everybody needs to perish by the end of this film. But not necessarily like in the old Alien films in strange and clever ways, in scenes that are unique and memorable, where there is mystery and tension. No, here it's only in the most gory, violent slasher way imaginable. The androids are there to insert the director's religious themed para-philosophy.
The plot makes the characters make all the stupidest, most imprudent decisions over and over. Granted, you could argue that we know what a Xenomorph is and what it can do, whereas the protagonists have to figure out this stuff out themselves; But you could argue further that it is precisely what makes these movies. This is where the movie's external tensions collide with each other. It's an Alien film so we need to see Xenos and the heroes will have to spend time to survive and find ways to deal with them. Yet, it also wants to have the whole evil android v. Good android arc, where David in a contrived quest to find meaning in life goes on to exterminate his makers and then to exterminate his makers makers. While doing a whole Xenomorph eugenics study in parallel. To be perfectly honest, I am not really sure if that is what was going on with David. And I am not sure I want to.
It is not the worst Alien movie, but that is not saying much really.
In light of this film, it must be said that Prometheus was actually doing something noteworthy. That note might not have been very high, and I loathe Scott's pseudo-religious commentary in all his movies; but Prometheus at least can stand on its own. It's arguably original and unique. It is very dumb and forced, but it is attempting to deliver larger ideas. It attempts world building and distinct characters. It had neat sci-fi ideas, some more interesting than others, and the plot made sense more or less.
Here, these same issues are compounded by a plot that is nonsensical. It feels like it was written in reverse. By a cold calculating machine almost, devoid of any semblance of human emotion. It is as if it was written by the evil android in the film. Indeed, every human is incredibly underwritten while the androids have more fleshed personalities. But that is beside the point really. The human characters only exist to serve as meat fodder for the scenes that need to happen. In all the scenes, any of them. It is as if everybody needs to perish by the end of this film. But not necessarily like in the old Alien films in strange and clever ways, in scenes that are unique and memorable, where there is mystery and tension. No, here it's only in the most gory, violent slasher way imaginable. The androids are there to insert the director's religious themed para-philosophy.
The plot makes the characters make all the stupidest, most imprudent decisions over and over. Granted, you could argue that we know what a Xenomorph is and what it can do, whereas the protagonists have to figure out this stuff out themselves; But you could argue further that it is precisely what makes these movies. This is where the movie's external tensions collide with each other. It's an Alien film so we need to see Xenos and the heroes will have to spend time to survive and find ways to deal with them. Yet, it also wants to have the whole evil android v. Good android arc, where David in a contrived quest to find meaning in life goes on to exterminate his makers and then to exterminate his makers makers. While doing a whole Xenomorph eugenics study in parallel. To be perfectly honest, I am not really sure if that is what was going on with David. And I am not sure I want to.
It is not the worst Alien movie, but that is not saying much really.
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