While not without its flaws, this latest chapter in the Alien franchise sees director Fede Álvarez bring things back to basics and stage some appropriately disgusting thrills.
ADVERTISEMENTAs fun and versatile as it has proven to be, even die-hard Alien fans can’t deny that the franchise has been struggling since its beginnings 45 years ago.
From the anxiety-inducing huis-clos of Alien (1979) and its war film sequel Aliens (1986), the film series has had more downs than ups. David Fincher reimaged it as a prison thriller in the fairly maligned Alien 3 (1992); Jean-Pierre Jeunet gave it a good go but ended up botching Alien: Resurrection (1997); and Ridley Scott’s return to the series with 2012’s Prometheus was one almighty lore-obsessed mixed bag.
The less said about the Alien vs. Predator crossovers, the better.
Now, seven years after the much-better-than-you-remember Alien: Covenant, the saga has been entrusted to Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez, who is no stranger to franchise resurrections – for better and for worse. His 2013 Evil Dead remake was surprisingly potent, while his 2018's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo instalment, The Girl In The Spider’s Web, was an almighty letdown and comfortably the worst in the Steig Larsson cinematic universe.
Thankfully, while Álvarez’ take on the phallic-shaped ETs doesn't measure up to Scott and James Cameron’s first and second instalments, his gamble pays off. For the most part.
Set between the events of Alien and Aliens, Alien: Romulus starts on Jackson’s Star Mining Colony, where we meet Rain (Priscilla and Civil War’s Cailee Spaeny) and Andy (Rye Lane’s David Jonsson), a “synthetic” who was rescued by Rain’s late father and is now like a brother to her.
When she’s told that she’s forced to continue to work in the smog-choked mines for a further six years by the intergalactic capitalistic bastards at the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, the two join an escape mission. Tyler (Archie Renaux) and his younger sister Kay (Isabela Merced), joined by the android-hating Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and pilot Navarro (Aileen Wu), have a plan. They’ve discovered a derelict space station that has drifted into the orbit of their mining colony, one which contains enough cryofuel and hypersleep chambers to allow the group to travel to another planet where the sun actually shines.
All they have to do is shuttle up there, swipe the highly regulated tech, and it’s the almighty bird flip to Weyland-Yutani they’ve been waiting for.
Unfortunately, little do they know that the vessel – which is made of two halves, Romulus and Remus – was on a mission of its own to salvage the Xenomorph that Ripley had blasted off her ship at the end of Alien. The crew succeeded... Then blackout.
You can guess what happened. And that it doesn’t end well for our heist-happy bunch.
To Álvarez’ credit, he does away with the messy mythology from Scott’s Prometheus and Covenant, which ultimately dragged both films down and dampened the scares. Instead, he brings his ‘interquel’ back to basics.
Clearly keen to return to the claustrophobia of the original film, the director embraces his horror credentials, as well as take some cues from the video game Alien: Isolation - especially when it comes to staging some of the film’s most heartstopping thrills. Two scenes stand out: the first features everyone’s favourite weaponized vaginas as our protagonists attempt to navigate a room full of Facehuggers (in what has got to be a cheeky nod to Álvarez’ very own home invasion thriller Don’t Breathe); the second being a creatively mounted zero-gravity acid blood dodging sequence.
Álvarez and his team also manage to replicate the ominous mood and feel of Scott and Cameron’s worlds. Whether it’s the atmospheric lighting, the flawless set design, or the return to the psychosexual biomech spirit of H.R. Giger’s original drawings by using a combination of animatronic models and practical visual effects, Romulus feels like a return to form.
As such, major plaudits go to production designer Naaman Marshall, Benjamin Wallfisch on scoring duties and the sound team led by Lee Gilmore, who all bring their unsettlingly formidable A-games.
Alien: Romulus may be something of a franchise rejuvenation – as well as a damn good time at the talkies - but there are blemishes along the way. Chiefly, the fan service.
ADVERTISEMENTFrom a needlessly resurrected character with distractingly poor CG to a recycled cult punchline, Álvarez plays the hits and it sometimes feels that he forgets to forge his own path inside the series.
While a loving Easter egg here and there is always welcome, as the runtime progresses, the callbacks turn into needless nostalgia. And even if the weaker Alien instalments have their drawbacks, no one can deny that each one was its own unpredictable thing, with their unique identity achieved through risk-taking.
This is where Romulus stumbles a bit. For all its visceral scares and perfectly recreated atmosphere, it plays it a bit too safe as a very effective monster movie that never quite dares to push things into uncharted territory. Granted, its position in the series chronology may hinder some venturing, but something's missing.
Still, regardless of how formulaic it can be in places, Alien: Romulus benefits from its stunning craft, a standout performance by Jonsson as Andy, and an intense finale that will prove that while no one can hear you scream in space, shrieks are plenty audible in movie theatres.
ADVERTISEMENTDoes it make the series’ top three podium after Alien and Aliens? Just about. But with this level of craftmanship, the bronze should have been more merited.
Alien: Romulus is out now.
