Charles Bals

I watched Alien Romulus tonight in France at an IMAX cinema and here's what I think: Ridley Scott's Alien was something so incredibly original when it came out - and it is still easy to understand why it still feels so "avantgarde". The casual dialogues thrown into space, characters that felt authentic and interesting already just about 5min into the movie, the minimal set design, the sound... a masterpiece start to finish. If the movie ALIEN was just a song, then Cameron's ALIENS would be the extended "Clubmix" on side B for whoever likes it long and loud. With all the other Alien movies that followed and failed I kept asking myself: what would it really take to get it right? What kind of director would u be looking for? David Fincher (Alien 3) seemed like an inspired idea - creatively speaking I would have thought he had it in him, too bad he just didn't get it out (...). And Jeunet and Caro? Great minds, just definitely the wrong choice for Alien. So what would have been the right thing for Alien? Well, I would have seen 3 options: 1) leave it as is - because as it stands we would have been better off with just the first two entries. But yeah, that's not what we came here for, I get it. 2) Get Chris Nolan and Zimmer instead of evil Alvarez to do the job and make this big, modern and intellectually mature - if you wanted to play it safe but stunning like he did for Bat Man. 3) My favourite option though: a minimalistic, kind of stealth approach, sort of "art house", ultra modern noir version of Alien with all efforts going to the characters, the mood and the pacing. Watching Todd Field's TÁR recently, I thought, "Now that feels fresh." Because: Alien Romulus almost doesn't feel like a real movie. I couldn't help myself but to think that I was sitting in a theme ride at Fox/Disney Amusement park with a bunch of teenagers sharing seats in the same spinning vessel. All around us the set-pieces of Alien & Aliens for us to revisit, amped with our favourite sounds - almost perfectly re-created in a audio-visual megamix, sponsored by Pepsi and Reebok and with a memorablia shop near the exit. Wait, what??! Is that Mickey Mouse standing at the cash register?