The events in Alien: Romulus occur between the time of the original Ridley Scott’s Alien and Aliens, James Cameron's follow-up. That makes Romulus both a sequel and a prequel, or, a midquel or interquel if you want to get technical about it.
Whatever you choose to call this eighth installment, Alien: Romulus brings a younger cast headed by Cailee Spaeny into the mix while reviving the movie's main attraction: hideous, acid-spewing creatures that can grow inside humans.
Director Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead, Don't Breathe) provides plenty of jolts, although he can't entirely reinvigorate the basic Alien formula: Monstrous creatures knock off humans in confined corridors that are often sealed by locked doors. You might call this “hatch-and-latch” cinema.
Adjustments have been made with the addition of an artificially created person named Andy (David Johnsson) and the presence of Rook, a mangled droid that looks and sounds like the late Ian Holm, who played Ash in the first installment. And, yes, Rook makes for a creepy self-referential addition.
In this version, dribbles of emotion trickle into the story from the relationship between Andy and Rain; she regards the child-like android as a brother. About midway through, a change in Andy's programming turns his personality from benign to rentless, a shift Johnsson makes the most of.
Romulus gets a considerable boost from the boiler-room aesthetic that began with the original, which delivered a welcome counterpunch to sleek futuristic space operas.
Space remains a source of minerals. The movie opens in the Jackson Mining Colony, home to scores of grizzled workers. The company that runs the place treats its employees like indentured servants.
The story picks up when Tyler (Archie Renaux) invites Rain to join him on a rogue mission to salvage spare parts from an abandoned space station that's divided into two sections, Romulus and Remus. The group wants to escape the mining life for a freer part of the universe. Rain hopes to flee the darkness and see the sun.
A corporation (evil, of course) had been conducting genetic experiments in the Romulus part of the station. If you don't know why all the station's residents are dead, you've never seen an Alien movie.
Oh yeah, one space traveler (Spike Fearn) hates synthetics, the movie's term for droids; another is pregnant (Isabela Yolanda Moner), allowing for the appearance of a grotesque ...
Never mind. No sense spoiling Alvarez's finale, although you may see it coming.
The proliferation of alien monsters effectively upgrades opportunities for tension. Alvarez has emphasized that the actors mostly worked with animatronics or puppets rather than computer-generated effects. I suppose that’s another virtue.
Slime and gore aside, corporate exploitation seems like a worn-out theme. Moreover, the movie's fresh faces, bizarre genetic twists, and strong atmospherics only carry Romulus so far -- better than some recent Alien movies, but not as good as first two.
And, look, the previous Alien movies haven't left much unsaid.
As for the big reveal during the movie's concluding battle, I chuckled. I don't think that was the response the movie was looking for.
No comments:
Post a Comment