Alien Romulus - New Release Review
Director: Fede Álvarez
Starring: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Achie Renaux, Aileen Wu, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn
Written by: Fede Álvarez, Rodo Sayagues
Produced by: Ridley Scott, Walter Hill, Gergö Balika, Michael Pruss
Cinematography by: Galo Olivares
Original Score by: Benjamin Wallfisch
Synopsis:
While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.
Thoughts:
Ever since the release of Ridley Scott's classic in 1979, the 'Alien' franchise has had its ups and downs. James Cameron took the idea and made a sci-fi action/horror epic for the ages with 'Aliens', David Fincher made a bleak follow up with the flawed yet admirable 'Alien3' and Jean-Pierre Jeunet closed off Ripley's story with the stylish yet bizarre 'Alien: Resurrection'. The series then struggled with two films that saw the Xenomorph take on the Predator and the less said about those, the better. Ridley Scott then took the series back to the beginning with the philosophical 'Prometheus' and its nasty follow up 'Alien: Covenant'. The latest entry in the series sees Fede Álvarez take the director's chair with 'Alien: Romulus'.
Set between the events of 'Alien' and 'Aliens' the film follows a group of young people from a mining colony on the planet of Jackson' Star where the sun never shines. They discover a derelict space station just above their planet and decide to embark on a scavenging expedition in the hope of finding the means to get them off world. What they get is more than they bargained for leading them to a fight for survival against the infamous Xenomorph.
First and foremost, 'Alien: Romulus' is very much a mixed bag of a film. For all the things that it does right, it does almost an equal amount wrong. Director Fede Álvarez is clearly a fan of the series and has publicly spoken about this on the press tour of the film and it's a good thing for a number of reasons but primarily in terms of the look of the film. He matches the lived in world feel of the series to the mining colony of Jackson's Star and the Romulus and Remus space station in sync with everything we have seen in the first two films, adding his own touches to the iconic designs, which is a credit to the terrific work of the production design team.
Once the world in which Romulus is set is established, we are introduced to the cast who are led by Cailee Spaeny who plays Rain, the Ripley cipher for the film who is desperate to move off world to the planet Yvaga to feel sunlight she has only dreamed of. Starring alongside her is David Jonsson, who plays her synthetic brother Andy. The rest of her rag tag group of friends are a collection of caricatures whose sole purpose is to be meat to the xenomorphic grinder that awaits them. Therein lies one of the main issues of the film in how the characters are underwritten making you uncaring to their fate. The only exception comes with the leads. Spaeny makes the most of her part but it is her presence on screen that makes her stand out as it is at its strongest when she doesn't say anything but tells you everything. Jonsson is equally as good as he practically plays a dual role in the film. The innocence he portrays with Andy at the beginning of the film evokes so much empathy for his character and when his character undergoes an upgrade he is transformative into a much colder persona that keeps you second guessing his motives.
Another additional cast member highlights one of the glaring problems with the film (and arguably franchise cinema as a whole) and that is in the area of fan service. During the press tour for the film Álvarez was championing the use of practical effects in the film (which are wonderful especially when it comes to the facehuggers and xenomorphs) which makes the decision to use digital makeup on a particular character a bizarre choice especially when a practical method could have easily overcome the problem. But some may find the use of digital makeup here to be in poor taste. It is jarring and is a disservice to the film and some may even find it to be downright offensive.
On top of this the constant throwback lines and an insistence on recreating moments from previous films works against the film which had every opportunity to stand on its own two feet. By the time the third act (which is like a hybrid of Alien: Resurrection and Prometheus) rolls around you resign yourself to the madness (and dare I say have a good time with it). It is not all doom and gloom when it comes to fan service as the one case that it works quite well is through Benjamin Wallfisch's score. It weaves in the themes from previous entries in the series without being overbearing and will delight fans of the series.
Whilst there are many issues stemming from the script there are two things that you can rely on with Fede Álvarez when it comes to horror and that is his ability to deliver a tense set piece and to create a lot of gross out horror. In terms of the set pieces, one that stands out is when some of the characters have to maintain their body temperature to make it through a hallway of facehuggers. Handled in near silence it keeps you on edge throughout harkening back to his work on 'Don't Breathe'. The same goes for an inventive sequence involving the acid blood of the aliens and a lack of gravity. In terms of the kills he delivers in spades in a gorey and gooey fashion, akin to his work on 'Evil Dead'. The one that stands out most is an acid based kill being a deliciously wince worthy moment with the runner up being a facehugger retracting its "planting device" (for lack of a better term) from a victim's throat that churns the stomach.
Ultimately 'Alien: Romulus' feels like a studio course correction run amok. It is clear that after the commercial underperformance of both 'Prometheus' and 'Alien: Covenant' that they wanted to go back to basics with the series. To an extent Álvarez achieves that here by creating a visually polished piece of survival horror in space. In that capacity it is a perfectly fine piece of Friday night sci-fi horror but some people may be left wanting more. The main thing that holds the film back is its over-reliance on callbacks and a sub par script that contains plot holes so big that you could fly the Nostromo through. It may be a solid entry in the series but you can't help but feel that it could have been so much more.
Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
-Joseph McElroy
'Alien: Romulus' is in cinemas right now!
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