Earning gold or silver are obviously tremendous achievements, but sometimes just making the podium is impressive enough. Take the Alien franchise for example; nailing first or second place in a series that started with one of the most influential movies ever made and then followed it up with a movie that’s debatably better (depending on who you ask), is utterly impossible and so the rest of the franchise’s existence has been a mad struggle to latch their claws securely on bronze.
Approaching the judges with the confidence of a man who successfully remade The Evil Dead, is Fede Álverez who, after a couple of decades of fun but flawed offerings from the likes of David Fincher, Jean Pierre Jeunet and, er, Paul W.S. Anderson, is the latest helmer who hopes to challenge for the crown. Does he have what it takes to get the Alien back into orbit where it so obviously belongs?
Life working for a Weyland-Yutani mining colony is unsurprisingly hard as the rigors of such an existence are proving to taking way too much of a toll on puny human biology. Struggling with this miserable existence is Rain Carradine, a young woman who has lost her parents as they slaved away on the mining planet known as Jackson’s Star and who, with her malfunctioning android “brother” Andy in tow, is desperate to leave this hell hole behind and breathe some clean air. However, a random lifeline to hope is extended out to her by friend Tyler when he tells her of a once in a lifetime shot at finally getting off-world and starting again somewhere where the crushing oppression of Weyland-Yutani is only a memory.
It seems that a derelict space station is drifting past their shit-hole planet and is due to be obliterated by its rings in a little over 30 hours time and Tyler and his gang – which contains pregnant sister Kay, cousin Bjorn and their friend Navarro – need Andy’s synth abilities to gain access to the place so they can make off with some cryo-sleep tech in order to make the nine-year journey to their dream planet.
At first, things seem to go off without a hitch and the tech they need seems to be their’s for the taking, but it seems that the space station Romulus had a rather sinister purpose back in its heyday and that’s to poke and prod at the exact same form of alien life that once terrorised a crew of space truckers years earlier. With their very presence seemingly waking up a bunch of dormant beasties we known as Facehuggers, a nightmare is about to pounce upon this mostly crew of desperate youths and show them what survival really means.
With the Romulus due to go boom very soon and vicious alien creatures literally crawling out of the walls, an extra issue arrives in the form of the iron will of the Weyland-Yutani corporation who will stop at nothing to continue playing with this xenomorphic promethean fire.
The fact that the Alien franchise suddenly whirred back to life for the first time since 2017s Alien: Covenant can’t be a simple accident – not when Disney recently found streaming success by taking the Predator franchise back to basics with the magnificent Prey. Obviously someone was paying attention, because courtesy of the House of Mouse, the Alien franchise has now attempted to do the same, taking the series back to its dark roots after Ridley Scott used the Xenomorphs to literally play God.
So gone are big, ambitious themes of creation and big swings involving a synthetic Michael Fassbender attempting to seduce himself and in their place we find Fede Áverez taking cues from almost every source the Alien franchise has to offer. In many respects, Áverez proves to be the perfect choice for many reasons, but the main one is that he’s made this movie once before already in the form of Don’t Breathe which proves to be rather inspired. Swapping out disenfranchised youths turning to crime in a run down Detroit, the director gives us the same (but still socially prevalent) motivations, only set in space instead. While the clutch of characters neatly fit the ensemble nature of the series (troubled youths seem a natural fit after the likes of truckers, marines, prisoners, pirates, scientists and pioneers), the group prove to be rather refreshing thanks to the likes of Cailee (Civil War) Spaeny, Isabela (Sicario: Day Of The Soldado) Merced and David Jonsson’s scene stealing, tragic, Andy – but if they truly are the spiritual successors of Don’t Breathe’s band of desperate anti heroes, then it’s the Xenomorph and all its forms that has to match up to Stephen Lang’s blind, lethal soldier. Of course, the Xenomorph has been reliably one of the most terrifying creatures in movie history and its here where Álverez really starts to flex his creative muscles.
Simply put, Álverez loves the Alien. You can tell, because he not only treats the thing like fucking royalty (he even gives us a middle section between the state of chestburster and warrior), but he also knows that the Xenomorph is only as effective as its surroundings; and it’s here that we find Alien: Romulus’ most impressive aspect – some lavatious world building that takes the worlds of Alien and Aliens and smooshes them together to create something incredibly familiar – yet still vibrantly… well, alien. Some may complain about the movie sometimes wandering way too close to the sort of fan service that made Ghostbusters: Afterlife such an exhilarating/jarring experience and the CGI return of a franchise character may raise eyebrows much in the same way the ghost of Harold Ramis did, but it admittedly serves the story and – as a long time fan – it’s genuinely cool to see. In fact, when it comes to maintaining the entire franchise, Romulus does more heavy lifting than a powerloader on full charge.
Not only does it play heavily in the world that Ridley Scott created with dark, steamy corridors, flashing bulbs and oppressive, psycho-sexual dread lurking round every corner, it also alludes to Cameron’s approaching era (pulserifles), gives a surprising nod to Scott’s prequels and even has an utterly mental climax that riffs upon – and vastly improves – Alien: Resurrection when it comes to random, genetic offshoots from Giger’s perfect organism. And yet, arguably the strongest influence isn’t from a film at all and in fact comes from the exemplary video game, Alien: Isolation, that not only first reminded Álverez that the Xenomorph can still make you shit your pants, but also guaranteed that the iconic star beast is reliably shoved back into the shadows where it belongs.
Heaps of dread? A dash of nihilism? An absolute bundle of slippery body horror? An absolutely cracking, gavity-free sequence? Alien: Romulus has all this in spades and not even a hefty amount of call backs/forwards can dull how truly exhilarating it is even if its basic structure hardly reinvents the slimy, biomechanical wheel. Consider that bronze medal well and truly earned, then.
In space, no one can here you scream – with absolute fucking joy.
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