By Sandra Hall
ALIEN: ROMULUS ★★★
(MA) 119 minutes
The superstar of the alien universe is back in all its face-hugging, chest-bursting fury. Alien: Romulus is the seventh instalment in the franchise launched in 1979 by Ridley Scott and carried on by James Cameron, David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine and David Jonsson as Andy in Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Alvarez.Credit: 20th Century Studios
The franchise has freely mixed sequels and prequels into its catalogue – this one is being called an “interquel”, slotted between the events of Scott’s original and Cameron’s 1986 follow-up, Aliens. Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley does not appear. She’s been in stasis for 20 years, with another 37 to go.
Instead, the script homes in on Jackson’s Star, a dark and gloomy mining colony in space where Rain (Cailee Spaeny), her android companion Andy (David Jonsson) and four of her friends are searching for a means of escape to a happier home.
It’s directed by Uruguyan filmmaker Fede Alvarez, whose curriculum vitae includes the highly successful 2013 reboot of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead. In other words, he has form, which means the hopeful colonists’ prospects are programmed for disaster from the very start.
Alien: Romulus is the seventh instalment in the franchise launched by Ridley Scott in 1979.Credit: 20th Century Studios
The group’s first step is to take control of the Corbelan, a spaceship battered enough to conjure up memories of the Nostromo, the ship that carried the young Ripley to her first confrontation with the horrors to come. They aim to pilot it to a sunnier spot in the cosmos, but on their way, they come across a decommissioned space station and decide to go aboard to see if they can find enough fuel to complete their journey. You can guess what they find.
Scott’s original was a masterly suspense movie – a battle of wits between human and alien with a sub-plot built around the role of Ash, the android member of the crew. Played by British actor Ian Holm, he was programmed by the corporate interests running the Nostromo’s mission, which meant that the crew’s welfare was not necessarily his main priority. It’s a theme that crops up again in this instalment when Andy, who’s been built solely to protect Rain, becomes a target of manipulation.
The difference is that Scott and his writers had a thorough understanding of the power of restraint, whereas I doubt that Alvarez has ever used the word. Admittedly, there’s no point in duplicating the game of hide-and-seek that Scott used so effectively in 1979.
The creature has been around too long for that. But it does turn out to have enough disgusting new genetic tricks in its armoury to warrant the occasional use of a slow reveal. Instead, it’s always ready for its close-up, which is inevitably presented in drooling detail.
If Alvarez is aiming to attract “body horror” fans, he’s succeeded brilliantly. But if you were impressed by the moral arguments explored in Scott’s last two prequels and by the gravitas that Weaver brought to the original trilogy, you’re out of luck with this one.
Alien: Romulus is in cinemas August 15.
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