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This thriller is the purest popcorn movie of this summer.

There is no need to see allusions to real society in comedies, nor to see non-realism in realistic themes. Sometimes it is enough to walk into a theater and feel a sufficient amount of fright, enjoying two hours of complete escape from reality.

The only drawback is that the film cut out some overly stimulating scenes. Although the narrative is still connected, the excitement level is reduced for those who want to watch "especially disgusting" and "especially bloody". For a horror movie, it is probably a bit regrettable.

Although the film was labeled "Minors should watch with caution", there were really no scenes that were particularly frightening. The flavors were not spicy or numbing.

In addition to killing time, if you also want to ponder some movie culture, then "Alien: Reaper" is also intriguing. Director Fede Alvarez knows how to make movies. Even if it is just for entertainment, the details show that he has a good grasp of the craft of "making movies".

The film was released simultaneously in the United States, and the public reputation of IMDB is currently 7.5 points, which is a good result for a thriller. You should know that the "new alien" "Prometheus" and "Contract" directed by Ridley Scott himself a few years ago only had an average score of 7.0 and 6.4 on IMDB. Considering the previous news that "Ridley watched the film and was very satisfied, praising the director, etc.", it seems that this is a real evaluation, not just a propaganda trick of the film's publicity.

The director posted a letter of encouragement from the old man on social media. Looking closely at the content and wording, it couldn't have been written by the publicity department, it must have been written by Ridley himself.

A photo of the director of this film and Mr. Ridley. The craft of "making movies" is still somewhat inherited.

From the perspective of film history, the theme of "Alien" is obviously just a horror and thriller genre, but it has left a certain mark in film history. When Ridley Scott created the first "Alien" (1979), no one thought that the original exquisite science fiction setting and B-level horror movies could be so closely linked.

The depressing environment of "space confinement" and the narrative mode of "guess who will survive to the end" are both extremely avant-garde elements, fully stimulating the audience's nerves and making the whole story seem "beyond imagination" - although these ideas no longer seem fresh today and have been imitated again and again by a large number of similar films, but 40 years ago, such a commercial film was not just a simple "popcorn", but had many innovations.

"Alien 1" and "Alien 2", just looking at the posters you can tell that the overall styles are quite different, but both have their merits, which also made the "Alien" series a classic.

Later, the style of "Alien 2" directed by the great James Cameron changed again, producing the classic plot of "Mech vs. Alien". There was also "Alien 3" directed by the young director David Fincher at the time - although David Fincher did not admit that this film was his work due to a dispute over editing rights. The director of "Alien 4" was the imaginative Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jeunet - his most famous work was "Amelie". The creative blessing of these excellent directors made "Alien" not only a well-known horror creation theme, but also each one had new artistic value in terms of art and creativity.

At its root, the "Alien" is just a virtual monster that can spray acid and has iron teeth and steel fangs, but it combines the ancient human instinctive fear of the "cave shadows", adds the mysterious imagination of the exploration of the "unknown universe" in the technological age, and the tone of modern social hegemony control such as "bionic men" and "corporate conspiracy". The theme has many classic features worth pondering, which goes beyond the simple "fright" effect.

The image of "Alien" was originally a scary monster, but under the influence of young people who are good at playing memes, its big head and grinning mouth make it look more and more like a "little cutie".

This film also has a pretty good director. Fede Alvarez is a Uruguayan who started working in Hollywood when he was young. He is good at creating dramatic conflicts and changes through the interaction between characters in a closed environment. His famous work "Don't Breathe" (2016) tells the story of three young thieves and a blind old man "wandering around" in a house, and made it into a 90-minute movie. It shows good original talent.

"Takeaway" can also be seen as a variation of similar youth themes. There have been many similar genre films before - a few fearless young people go to the forest or cave to play together, accidentally activate mysterious and terrifying evil spirits, and fall into a desperate situation where they are hunted one by one... The director has also taken on the remake of "Evil Dead" (2013), which is almost the same content setting. The story of "new wine in old bottles" is nothing more than moving to space and performing it again, which is the secret of film companies to dig gold and make coins.

This episode pays great attention to the creation of the light and shadow atmosphere.

Even in the essay, it can be seen that the director has done a detailed study of the "standard essay". The story setting of this film borrows a lot from "Alien 1", and even resurrects an old "character" from more than 40 years ago through AI production; and the tough image of the heroine holding a machine gun to "shoot the alien" can also be seen in "Alien 2" and other subsequent films. Similar factors; at the same time, the slightly exaggerated "human gene completion plan", a new science fiction setting added to the two "new aliens", also made a relatively reasonable explanation in the story. These contents, which can be collectively referred to as "easter eggs", are actually a cultural respect and reverence for the continuation of the "Alien" theme, and are not just a display of "monsters poking a hole in the human body".

In addition to the scary parts, such as the slightly lengthy first part of the film, we can even see that the director has made a detailed portrayal of the backgrounds of several teenagers - although we all know that these characters are just names that appear on the "death list" later, we still spend some time to understand their lives. The oppressive external environment of the colonized planet appeared in the "Alien" series for the first time. Combined with the current situation of intensified conflicts around the world, it has a bit of alternative realism, which reminds people of the giant ark representing the "American Dream" in the background of the "Great Depression" in "Titanic". As several characters in the film yearn for - will another planet that can see the sun be a better home? However, in the abandoned space laboratory, they all have to pass the "alien" level first.

The scene of learning to use a rifle is exactly the same as in Alien 2, which is a tribute to the classic. Although the male and female protagonists are obviously flirting with each other, the whole film does not spend too much time on the clichés of love. The director still has a lot of thoughts in the plot selection.

For teenage horror films, "horror" represents a test of courage and the value of life. The characters who survive to the end have transcended the ignorant and foolish "youth" stage and eventually become "adults" who are responsible for themselves. Just like traveling through the four old versions of "Alien", the heroine Sigourney Weaver who survived to the end became the representative of "female action heroes" on the screen. Will the little-known heroine Carice Paine have more room for growth in the future? It depends on whether she will have more "dramas" in similar films in the future.

For popcorn movies, the audience may not have so much patience to pay attention to the growth and changes of the characters. In this film, the changes in the status of the bionic man before and after, and the width of the performance space, can leave a deeper impression on people. Now it seems that in addition to knowing that "the alien is scary" and "the company has a big conspiracy", the plot is still a bit simple, just continuing the classic settings, and the degree of innovation is still a little lacking. Upon further investigation, these are all areas where the director can play better. But it also avoids the old man's previous personal involvement in filming two "Human Gene Completion Projects", which seemed large and inappropriate, leaving the audience confused and not knowing how to evaluate it.

Besides the thriller, the heroine and her bionic man confront the "alien" head-on, which finally corrects the style of the first two films. At least this one is more refreshing.

As a standard popcorn movie, this film is not very innovative, but the details are well thought out. Especially in the creation of horror elements, if you look closely, you can notice that the director has made many changes in the design of lighting atmosphere and sound effects in different environments and scenes. For a horror movie with young actors as the main actors - that is, the overall production cost is relatively cheap - it is already qualified for not being made into a B-level movie.

In fact, the thriller and horror genres all rely on small to achieve big results. Whether it's the "Jigsaw" series or "Final Destination", the sequels have been getting worse and worse in reputation, and the films have been getting worse and worse, until the commercial value is completely exhausted. The "Alien" series at least has not fallen to this point, at least it will not end with this one.