With Fede Alvarez of the Evil Dead remake and The Girl in the Spider’s Web at the helm, this entry in the series kicked off by Alien (1979) tries to get back to scary basics after Ridley Scott’s prequel trilogy got scuppered two films in. Gone are musings on the meaning of life and (literally) on the menu are desperate characters in peril on an alien-infested, dangerously malfunctioning space station.
Though there’s an Of Mice and Men relationship between tough young woman Rain (Spaeny) and processor-impaired robot Andy (Jonsson), this rushes through set-up to get its group of to-be-killed-or-worse characters onto the orbiting Romulus/Remus station. The hook parallels Alvarez’ Don’t Breathe as would-be thieves pick the wrong space hulk to steal cryo-pods from.For three-quarters of the movie, the suspense and horror works.
All the Alien films, even the duff ones, introduce new ideas to the franchise. This comes up with a surprising number of new things to do with acid blood, facehuggers, spiky tails, zero gravity, an asteroid belt, synthetic people, the schemes of the Weyland-Yutani Company, and slime-dripping extensible maws.
A major player from the series’ past is Rogue One’d in via CG as a handy exposition device, though the tech still isn’t quite there to make it seamless, and an overlong climax disappointingly reprises the wind-up of the most middling previous Alien film.
Cailee Spaeny is okay but gets little to work with – frankly, she was better served by her character in Pacific Rim Uprising – but David Jonsson continues the tradition that the synthetic human is the breakout character and handles an arc which requires an impressive performance range from pathos to chill.
After the pompous stodge of Prometheus and Alien Covenant, Alien Romulus is at least exciting, atmospheric, inventive and committed to making audiences jump or gasp.
Alien: Romulus is out in cinemas on 16 August
