Summary
The Alien franchise is dead, don’t let anyone tell you any different.
So before we get into everything wrong with this film, and there is a lot, we will talk about the three things I liked. Firstly, I enjoyed the connections to Prometheus it was neat to have it and to have a direct tie between the prequel films and the later Ripley, Sigourney Weaver films, though it would have been better if David, Michael Fassbender, had appeared. Secondly, I liked that they brought back the science officer from the first film that was an interesting and plot relevant cameo. Thirdly, the final monster was very well designed and looked both alien and frightening.
Now with that out of the way lets get into why this film isn’t good. The main and most glaring reason why this film is bad is because the entire cast beyond David Jonsson’s Andy and Isabela Merced are awful people and entirely unlikeable. So Andy is a Synthetic and the film seems to use that as a stand in for someone with mental disabilities in a sickening way. The opening sections of the film have Andy being beaten up for being different, being told he is lesser than by the other crew members and being told by his sister, Cailee Spaeny, that he is going to be left behind when she wants to start a new life. The poor guy even apologizes to his sister for being a burden it is really hard to watch. The way the entire cast of characters bar Merced’s treat Andy as though he is just something to be used and discarded is a really horrible comment on how vulnerable people are treated by some. The film has Spaeny’s lead realise that she should treat him better by the end, but it doesn’t change the fact that you start rooting for the alien and kill them all. To make matters more uncomfortable you also have the fact that Andy is a POC and his whole purpose in life is to service a white lady. No one, at Disney, at Fox, anywhere thought how did that look.
The film also goes out of its way to make the Xenomorph weaker and easier to beat, it uses the mud trick from Predator in a different way and has the lead just shoot a whole mess of them that just charge her for no good reason in zero gravity. They are supposed to be smart and super hard to kill but our lead kills about 12 of them in under 5 minutes. This also drops the threat level of the film as a whole and is not made up for with Human/Engineer hybrid at the end, which whilst scary is too little too late.
Overall, a disappointment that leaves a poor taste after watching it.
1/5
Pros.
Prometheus ties
Bringing back the science officer
Cons.
The characters are horrible and one dimensional
They treat the synthetic guy in a cruel and nasty way and it is hard to watch
There is some vague racist undertones to it
It makes the xenomorph non-threatening
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