45 years on from the original, this latest instalment in the Alien franchise takes a back-to-basics approach after recent stumbles, but fails to truly make its mark.
★★★✰✰
The Alien franchise has existed in a strange half-life for much of its recent history. It is perhaps one of the most enduring horror movie franchises out there, with this year marking the 45th anniversary of the original films release back in 1979. At the same time, the various additions to the franchise over the past two decades have mostly been spin offs, from the short-lived Alien vs Predator (2004; 2007) crossovers, to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012) and Covenant (2017) prequel films, which focused on the backstory to concepts he had introduced in the original. Alien: Romulus, the newest entry, and the first since Disney’s acquisition of Fox, takes a much more back to basics approach, largely dropping the narrative threads left over from these films in favour of a far more conventional retelling.
The film, from horror director Fede Álvarez (Don’t Breathe; The Girl in the Spider’s Web), mostly treads similar ground to the 1979 original, in a tight and claustrophobic thriller that focuses on a mundane, ordinary crew of people who find themselves trapped in space with the titular monster. Set between the first film and its various sequels, Alien: Romulus follows this small group of workers from the mining colony of Jackson’s Star as they seek to salvage parts from a derelict spacecraft in the hope of leaving their lives behind and travelling to a colony that is better off. Unbeknownst to them, the abandoned Romulus space station which they break into had been investigating what became of the creature from the original film, and upon entering, they unwittingly awaken the specimens it is carrying, and cause all hell to break loose.
From the start, the film very deliberately evokes previous entries in the franchise. As well as following much the same overall formula, it also leans heavily on practical effects, and aims to recapture the emphasis on horror and visceral gore as was present in the first film, as well as the rundown, lived-in feel which that film had. The first act of the film is the most impressive, the scenes set in the colony effectively conveying the bleakness of the world in which the characters find themselves. A hostility towards capitalism has long been a theme of the series, but it has perhaps never been as pronounced as it is here, with its depictions of a planet in perpetual darkness, it’s population forced to toil away in the hopes of a ticket to freedom elsewhere, only for their hours to be arbitrarily extended by the corporation running everything. It’s a desperate environment, and viewers easily understand why our main cast are willing to risk everything to get out.
Cailee Spaeny, seen previously in last year’s Priscilla Presley biopic, Priscilla, fits in well here as main character Rain, although ultimately her character ends up as little more than a stand-in for Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. The stand-out performance by far is that of David Jonsson as android Andy, who is able to switch with ease from a real sense of vulnerability to menacing unpredictability. The rest of the cast are a lot more forgettable, and much of the rest of the film is spent simply waiting to see which one gets bumped off next. This, of course, has been the formula for most Alien movies, but whereas earlier films still took the time to make their characters stand out, and particularly in the first, to make it unclear who even was the main character, here they tend to just blur into one.
This is the chief issue with Alien: Romulus. Whilst it starts out promisingly enough, much of it feels generic, never going beyond the tried and tested formulas of previous films. The plot feels incredibly insubstantial, to the point where, halfway through the film, the narrative appears to jump from having just one Xenomorph, which we see being born just as in Alien, to then a dozen of the creatures appearing seemingly from nowhere, in a chaotic shootout sequence. This third act of the film in particular features a whole bunch of set pieces that stretch credibility; as in one scene where the characters have to dodge the creature’s acid blood in zero gravity, or another, where Rain appears to fall to her certain death in an elevator shaft.
The heavy use of fan service and call-backs is also particularly egregious here. Not only are there frequent instances where characters will directly quote or recreate instances from the previous films with little to no context, but the film also goes so far as to resurrect Ian Holm’s character from Alien via CGI, a move that feels distinctly lacking in taste, as well as simply looking unnatural. There has already been much debate recently around some other films’ tendencies to artificially recreate past performances in this way – especially in cases like this, where the actor in question is deceased. But it’s something that particularly stands out here because it does feel as if there is genuinely no justification ever given in-story for it. The character’s resemblance adds nothing to the plot, and there is no reason why the character could not have been played – much more convincingly – by another actor, save for the film to add another call-back.
Ultimately, whilst the film is technically impressive, and will offer fans a return to the kind of material that originally marked out the franchise, there is little here that offers anything new, or which rivals the heights achieved by previous entries such as Alien and Aliens. The CGI reanimation of Ian Holm’s character is perhaps a fitting metaphor for the film as a whole – a lifeless corpse, superficially similar, unnaturally aping what has come before.
The Verdict
Technically impressive, Alien: Romulus is a much more standard addition to the franchise than some previous entries have been, and for this reason alone, many fans will likely have a blast with it. But there’s little in it which can rival the first two films, with much that feels generic and formulaic.
Alien: Romulus is in cinemas now.
Words by Daniel Goldstraw
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