Fede Alvarez isn’t the most obvious choice to direct an Alien movie. Don’t get me wrong, the Evil Dead and Don’t Breathe filmmaker knows his way around gore, crafting enough grisly scenes to make all of our blood run cold. But is that necessarily what we want from the franchise that saw Ridley Scott and James Cameron craft two of the best sci-fi films ever made? Turns out, yeah, it IS what we want from Alien: Romulus, as Alvarez brings scary back to deep space while carving his own niche, paying homage to the past, and embracing the entirety of what Alien is.
Alien: Romulus takes place between Scott’s 1979 classic Alien, and Cameron’s equal-but-different 1986 sequel, Aliens. Alvarez gets it. These movies are meant to be terrifying, but you’re not meant to only be scared of the facehuggers and Xenomorphs stalking every corner of some derelict spaceship. You’re also meant to fear the cold grip of corporate greed, the nameless and faceless suits that will put human lives in jeopardy for the sake of potential profits generated by an extraterrestrial super weapon. Sure, a chest-burster sucks but the CEO who put you in there with it? That guy’s a monster.
A young cast brings a blast of spark to the long-lived series. But it’s a small cast, which means Alvarez doesn’t have a high body count to play around with. Fortunately, he proves just as adept at ratcheting up the anxiety and stacking new building blocks onto the Alien franchise. Priscilla and Civil War star Cailee Spaeny plays Rain, a poor industrial laborer in a Weyland-Yutani work camp. All she has in the world are her synthetic sibling Andy (extraordinary Rye Lane actor David Jonsson) and a hope of getting off that doomed planet. When the slim opportunity arises to do just that, courtesy of her former flame Tyler (Archie Renaux), she takes the shot because it’s clear that Weyland-Yutani aren’t going to help. Shocker, those corporate bozos are never up to any good.
All they need is to scavenge the needed parts from a derelict space station they just happened to find floating out there in space. You’d think someone would notice it. These are just kids, really, but they managed to find it before anyone else? We know that obviously a terrible reason exists for it to be just sitting there, but what would an Alien movie be without people making really stupid mistakes out of desperation?
Joined by Tyler’s sister Kay (Isabela Merced), his bullying cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Bjorn’s girlfriend Navarro (Aileen Wu), the group soon discovers something horrible is being kept aboard the station.
“There’s something in the water!”, one shouts before a facehugger makes an Olympic-level leap for his head.
Alien: Romulus feels different from the other films by centering its attention on a younger generation of people who have been beaten down by capitalism run amok. Rain and the others have nothing left to live for, facing a future where they work themselves to death just like their parents did. They have something to overcome that’s larger than a Queen Xenomorph…although the Xenomorph is the most immediate and deadliest threat.
Speaking of which, Alvarez crafts the most terrifying version of the creatures yet. H.R. Giger’s designs are the backbone, but Alvarez focuses on the aspects that make them so grotesque: the bulbous head, the dripping acidic goop, their death rattle-like sound, the intimidating exoskeleton. And ugh the disgusting sound when one burrows its way into a human’s internal organs, only to come bursting forth later like a bloody party favor. Utilizing practical effects and an ominous score by composer Benjamin Wallfisch that harkens to past films, Alien: Romulus has a tactile urgency and visceral quality that is always exciting. This is the best the franchise has been in years.
Spaeny has been on a hot streak and that continues here. As Rain, she manages to do what so many before her have failed at, which is to not be a knockoff of Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley. Rain could’ve been fleshed out a bit more, as she only feels fully-realized when sharing time with Jonsson’s Andy. It’s Andy who is the standout character, with Jonsson delivering another tremendous performance. There’s always a troublesome A.I. in these movies but Andy is different. Programmed by Rain’s dead father with his only prime directive to “do what’s best for Rain”, Andy is often timid, looking like a liability on such a dangerous mission. He soothes Rain with a litany of horrible “dad jokes”, and struggles to fit in among groups. Their relationship is unlike anything seen in Alien and that’s a breath of fresh air, while also being quite easy to root for. When Andy is forced to take charge, we can’t help but worry what it’ll do to him, even though he’s an android without human feelings.
Alvarez and his writing partner Rodo Sayagues set a very high bar for Alien: Romulus by placing it between Scott and Cameron’s films. While the plot is pretty straight-forward, there are a few surprising twists that devoted fans of the franchise will recognize immediately. Some of these will prove extremely divisive, but they are bold choices and Alvarez deserves credit for making them. Alien: Romulus grabs you facehugger tight from the very beginning and doesn’t let go. It’s okay to be afraid to journey into space again.
Alien: Romulus opens in theaters on August 16th.
