Tag: Noomi Rapace

Alien: Romulus (2024) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: A group of disillusioned colonists get set for one big job to earn enough money for their freedom from the corporation that essentially owns them. As you can guess from the title, they meet a Xenomorph.

I managed to catch Covenant at the cinema during its theatrical release, and I wasn’t too impressed by it. Part of me wondered whether that was because I hadn’t seen any of the others. However, just through cultural osmosis, I recognised certain bits of it as paying homage to the original, making it seem like a greatest hits package, albeit one rerecorded by a different line-up because the lead singer fired everybody and didn’t want to pay them royalties so replaced them all with session musicians. By which I mean, I recognised the narrative and visual melodies, but they weren’t as sharp and exciting as I knew they had originally been.

Now, onto Romulus. Romulus VERY heavily leans into the original, taking place between that and Aliens, as well as featuring dialogue that explicitly references the original, just oddly delivered. The Xenomorph in Romulus is the same creature from the original, and there is an android that physically resembles Ash (the android, not the result of fire, or the Pokemon animal torturer). Now I have actually seen the first two films in the franchise, so am more able to spot more subtle references, it wouldn’t be a stretch for me to dislike Romulus as much as I did Covenant. Especially since it was written/directed by Fede Alvarez and co-written by Rodo Sayagues, the team responsible for the “you’ve kind of made a rapist sympathetic” horror movie Don’t Breathe (which I heavily disliked) and its “So you’ve made the rapist the hero now?” sequel Don’t Breathe 2, (which I utterly despised).

I didn’t. I, well I don’t want to say “enjoy”, as it was tense as hell and disturbing, but I was thoroughly “oooo”‘d, and a little bit “aaaaaa”‘d. There are some truly fantastic set pieces in this, full of creativity and intelligence. The use of the acidic blood in some of the scenes is superb, with my personal highlight being when the characters make a zero gravity journey through a corridor whilst the acidic blood floats around them. Some amazing scenes make the best use of gravity mechanics available to the characters. It felt like Alvarez and Sayagues looked at the toys they had to work with in terms of the technology and location developed earlier in the franchise, and then thought of scenes that would make the best use of them.

I haven’t felt this tense (at the cinema at least) since Civil War, which also starred Cailee Spaeny. The Alien franchise has many flaws, but one thing it’s always EXCELLED at has been casting perfect female leads. Noomi Rapace, Katherine Waterston, Weaver etc are all critically acclaimed performers, and I know that Spaeny will get there. She received some acclaim for her role in Priscilla, but that’s not enough. She was incredible in Civil War, to the point where in my review (link here) I specifically pointed out her performance, saying (and I quote):

she is damn near perfect. I want to see what she does next because she is fucking phenomenal in this

I didn’t quite expect her next performance to be this good. It’s genuinely difficult to figure out which of her performances is better. I dunno, maybe her next film will be shit. I’ll just see what she’s in next. *checks*. Knives Out 3. Oh damn, she’s in line for a perfect three-film run.

Romulus isn’t all perfect, some of the fanservice is a little bit too obvious, the final third drags a little bit, and some of the CGI feels a little weird. Those are very nitpicking criticisms though. Overall it’s incredible. There’s so much to like about it. David Jonsson (last seen here in Rye Lane) as a defective droid is great, with the character providing so much tension and humanity throughout, especially with a few of the narrative reveals (essentially the trolly problem) adding some background to humanity’s relationship with androids. The other characters are fine, but aren’t really explored enough, they don’t need to be though. Not everybody is a main character, so it’s fine if some characters are less developed than others.

The location is also a highlight. Much like the other entries in the franchise, there’s a kind of future-retro feel to everything. There’s a lot of future technology, but all the computers etc have all clearly seen better days. It would be much like having a film in 2010 featuring VHS players, but the film itself being released in the 1950’s.

Overall, I loved this movie. It’s cruel, atmospheric, and downright terrifying in parts, absolutely perfect for cinema.

Assassin Club (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn Review1 Comment

Quick Synopsis: An elite assassin is given his final contract and must kill seven people around the world, only to discover the targets are equally skilled assassins hired to kill him.

There are few things that frustrate me more as a reviewer than a film that’s just “meh”. A film that is so bland that it’s difficult to talk about. So thank the heavens for a film like Assassin Club, a film that gives me so much to talk about on account of being absolute shit. It’s a confusing mess, not in a “the plot is too complicated” way, but in a visual way. It’s like it was made with no idea how to visually tell a story. Choices are made with the shots and edits which are truly baffling. It’s almost as if they were hoping the audience would see a sequence of quick jump cuts and be fooled into thinking that what they were watching was exciting. But it’s not exciting, again, it’s shit. Nothing about it ever goes above generic, I don’t know how such talented performers could seem so amateur. Noomi Rapace is better than this, she has proven it again and again, so I don’t know what she thought was doing in this but it’s not working. Henry Golding, again, has proven his talent in films like Crazy Rich Asians and Snake Eyes, to the point where there is a discussion about him possibly being the new Bond. In those circumstances, the studio will be looking to films like this as a litmus test as to whether he can pull it off. I have to admit, Assassin Club doesn’t help his case; despite being the lead it doesn’t really give much of an indication of what he can actually do as an action star. Every action scene is cut to an incomprehensible mess that gives the appearance that they were cutting around his failures as a performer.

The actors aren’t helped by the script, which, again, makes some decisions which seem a bit weird. For example; it builds up one of the assassins as a mysterious mystery, their name is not known, and neither is their face or any other identifiable features. Logically, a mystery like this is done so that you can have a reveal later on where it turns out a character you thought was harmless turns out to be the mystery assassin. The fact that the other assassins get killed off so quickly indicates that the direction the story is going in will be based on “let’s uncover this mystery person”. Nope, she (oh yeah, the character is a she) gets revealed in the next few minutes. So what was the point of having them be a mystery in the first place? The script makes the characters idiotic too. A character is injected with poison and told “Give me the information I want and I’ll give you the antidote”. He refuses the antidote, choosing to die, but gives over the information anyway. This character, by the way, is played by Sam Neil, and his character really lets the film down. He constantly withholds information that will help Goldings’ character, just so it’s withheld from the audience. He justifies it by saying things like “I knew you were going to defeat them anyway”, but still; that information would be useful.

Films like this either need to be very smart, very slick, or very fun. This is neither. It’s so dumb it feels like a 90s movie, completely wasting its potential premise (a similar premise was seen in Smoking Aces, and they had the decency to have a VERY strong supporting cast). This should be an ensemble piece, it’s seven assassins sent to kill each other, why would you make that film and only have a singular plot thread? Keeping more of the assassins alive for longer would have meant that Rapace’s character wouldn’t have had to slam the face/heel revolving door quite as frequently as she does. There are also multiple instances where characters don’t take the really obvious choice that will solve their problem/allow them to escape. There’s no thread of intelligence running through the narrative, instead, there’s just a motorway of disappointment. It’s shot too badly to be slick. Some camera angles are chosen not because they are the best option, but because the director thought it would look impressive for the half a second it was used for, like they’d seen it be used in other films and thought “Hey, let’s copy that”, without understanding why those shots and techniques were used.

It’s also too dull to be fun. Everything about it has been done better by films which aren’t even great. It’s the film equivalent of a tribute act to a covers band, bringing absolutely nothing new to the table. In a year where John Wick showed just how good action films could be, all this shows us is that 65 has competition for “Worst film of the year”.