Science fiction

Film review of Alien: Romulus, the latest entry in the science fiction horror series that picks up years after the events depicted in the first movie. Starring Cailee Spaeny and directed by Fede Alvarez.

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 (from IMDb).

Review, by @Reelreviewer

Are we at the end of the cinematic road with the Alien franchise?

Sigourney Weaver’s hard-as-nails character Ripley has long been dead in the series, and she dealt with a lot of stuff as those acquainted with these movies will spot in Romulus. She started as a lone woman (and the only sensible one among her crew who felt John Hurt’s infested character should not be allowed back on their ship) pitted against the monstrous, xenomorph.

After a prolonged cryosleep, she was slung back toward the planet that started it all and became an unwitting (but convincing) leader of Marines; another cryosleep (Ripley must have been nearly 200 years old at this point) saw her deposited on a prison planet and fending of rapacious inmates and the alien. Finally, Ripley was a genetically reconstructed remnant in a mostly camp, excessively gooey and gory last hurrah for Weaver.

If you’ve seen those four films, you’ve seen most of Romulus, which isn’t surprising. It’s co-produced by some of the old Brandywine company behind Alien (1979) – Ridley Scott and Walter Hill – who are clearly not above the glut of in-jokes, quotes and other reference points to those movies:

• Ash, the clinical, coolly dispassionate science officer in Alien, returns in a CGI-generated version of Ian Holm, the late, great actor who played him so scarily in 1979 (he hasn’t changed).
• The ‘offspring’ (played by the tall, cadaverous Romanian Robert Bobroczkyi) is born during a gory, bloody, vaginal birth scene, as you see in Resurrection. Like that film, he then kills his birth mother before going on a rampage in a ship.
• New ‘synthetic person’ Andy (David Jonsson) quotes Ripley’s immortal Aliens line: “Get away from her. You bitch!”
• Spaeny slips into her longed-for cryosleep at the conclusion and her face is superimposed against a planet, as Ripley’s was in Aliens.

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cringe. Instead, as I left the cinema, I felt sad for Scott and Hill. Were they – and the writers – unable to conjure up anything more than this hackneyed mishmash of nods and twitches to former glories?

Are they that hard up/reputationally embarrassed after the baffling and (mostly) unsatisfying prequel/reboots Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017) that left most critics ‘meh’?

Although there’s little original thought here, there is some development. The ‘face huggers’ (or parasitoids, as Andy calls them, the things that attach to people and impregnate them) become more of a ‘character’ (for want of a better term) as we see how humans can escape them by increasing the room temperature to avoid detection.

I admit there is a palpable, gripping atmosphere throughout. Despite the yawningly drawn-out opening exposition featuring a cast of young, terribly inexperienced actors* who seem just out of a bargain basement stage school, when things kick off, I gripped my cinema seat, squirmed and closed my eyes more than once.

*Two rays of light, however – Spaeny is a superbly terrified but resourceful lead. Think Sigourney Weaver and Frances Pugh. As her synthetic brother, David Jonsson , puts in a lovely, gentle performance.

Alien fans will lap up any flick with a xenomorph, and good luck to them. Movies, like life, are fleeting things, so more power to your elbow if some of them give you pleasure.

But for me, there are only so many times I can see this stuff. Even with an Alien TV offshoot coming out next year, I’m out from now. Sigourney et al from the first four flicks – thanks for the memories.

Cast & credits

Director: Fede Alvarez. 1h 59mins/119 mins. 20th Century Studios/Scott Free Productions/Brandywine Productions/Québec Production Services/New Zealand Film Commission/Hungarian Film Incentives/Twentieth Century-Fox Productions. (18)

Producers: Gergö Balika, Walter Hill, Michael Pruss, Ridley Scott.
Writers: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues.
Camera: Galo Olivares.
Music: Benjamin Wallfisch.
Sets: Naaman Marshall.

Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu, Rosie Ede, Robert Bobroczkyi.