I watched this film more out of a sense of obligation than any great desire to see more of the Alien universe. It's the next part of what is effectively "The Prequels" to the main Alien sequence, following on from Prometheus but still pre-dating the original "Alien".
This set of films has partly suffered from the issue the other famous prequels (Star Wars, just in case that wasn't obvious) has had. The original films made such a splash, and had such a formative impact on the genre tropes, that anything that comes after seems like a weak reflection.
Take this film's Ripley equivalent, Janet Daniels, played by Katherine Waterston. Now go back and read that sentence. I've started from the position that the female lead who shows compentence and strength under adversity is the "Ripley equivalent". The original character had such an impression on the series that there is no way of getting away from it. The bar is nostalgia, and that is generally too high to beat. This film is at its best when it's trying to stand on its own feet, rather than doing an impression of an Alien film. One particular area where the prequels have improved is the synthetic aspects. Michael Fassbender does a very good creepy android, creeping along the line between humanity and artificiality.
The film does rather suffer from too many characters as well. It's an Alien film, there's going to be a lot of deaths. And when the aliens make their first appearance, we have about seven deaths in the space of three minutes. I remember maybe two of those people. I could not tell you anything interesting about them. At least when the numbers finally get thinned down a bit, the remaining ones are a bit more distinct.
Though good lord they tend to be stupid. I keep suggesting the excuse that these crews are being sent with no major knowledge or experience so we can expand Weyland's knowledge of the Aliens/Engineers. Honestly, that doesn't work in this film. If you've just had to shoot a horrifying alien that's trying to bite your head off, it might not be the best move to then stick that head in a weird pulsating alien egg thing, even if someone says it's fine. Hey, maybe there's candy in there!
At least the effects were good. Some very impressive Neo/Xenomorphs in this, with some nifty slaughter and general bone/gut spurting all over the place. Bit more gorny in general than Prometheus, I'd say. The Girl did spend a bit too much of the film with a fluffy jumper pulled up over her head, so I'm assuming she found it sufficiently scary.
It also tied up a lot of plot points very nicely. I had a fair bit of "huh, that's how that happened" while watching the film. Admittedly, after that, I now find myself thinking "well, that's the entire story told, maybe they can stop making Alien films now". However, it made a fair bit more than it cost, so there's bound to be another one in a few years. And I'll probably watch it. It's just, how nice would it be if we got something else instead? (Also see Terminator.)
Hell, it's reasonable fun, and it wasn't stupid enough for me to turn it off halfway through.
Recommended.
Tagged: Film Horror Evil aliens Fiction Cinema