McDaniel
“Alien: Romulus” is the best “Alien” movie since Ridley Scott’s 1979 original.
There have been five Alien movies made over the decades since (not counting “Prometheus” or the “Alien vs. Predator” crossovers), and this story takes place in the franchise timeline somewhere between “Alien” and “Aliens,” but here’s the great thing: you do not need to have seen the previous movies to enjoy this new installment.
If you have, there are familiar faces and easter eggs that will enhance your experience, but even with no knowledge of the Alien lore, it’s easy to follow and tense as ever.
That’s because the film was directed by Fede Álvarez (“Evil Dead,” “Don’t Breathe”), who has made a living by masterfully creating tense moments on screen.
This story takes a while to get going, but once it does it’s pedal to the floor until the end. It follows Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny), a woman looking for a way off a disease-ridden mining planet she’s stuck on with her adopted synthetic android brother, Andy (David Jonsson).
When a group of acquaintances tell her there’s an abandoned spacecraft floating directly above them, and it has cryo pods inside that could help them survive a nine-year journey to a different, more pleasant planet, she thinks she’s found her escape.
The problem is, you guessed it, there’s a lot more on the ship than just cryo pods.
What could have been your run of the mill “monster chase human” movie becomes a terrifying reminder of how helpless it would feel to be hunted by these master killers in space. Acid burns, chest explosions — the brutality of some of these kills are as memorable as the classic chest-popping moment from the original.
And to add to the terror, these people are on a deadline: the ship they’re being hunted on is on its way to crashing into the rings of the planet it orbits.
One of the climactic scenes near the end had half the theater gasping. I’m not sure the last time I had that sort of joint experience in a screening, but it felt like a new iconic scene I’ll not soon forget.
“Alien: Romulus” is one of those movies where every time you think the heroes finally have something going for them, another deadly hurdle pops up that they must figure out how to get over. But these moments felt organic, and I cared about the outcome, because strong performance kept a familiar model from feeling stale.
Spaeny stood out in all the right ways in last year’s drama “Civil War,” and she feels right at home in the horror genre. There’s a certain on-screen presence you just can’t teach, and she’s got it (looks like she was cast to star in season 2 of the Emmy-winning Netflix series “Beef”).
Perhaps more memorable than Spaeny is Jonsson. In the high emotion chaos of the story, he steals scenes as the matter of fact android you want to trust, but don’t feel completely comfortable with, because through it all he is only following his programming.
If you thought a new chapter wasn’t needed, “Alien: Romulus” shows that the Alien franchise is very much alive, and it’s thriving in the darkness.
4.5/5
Scott McDaniel is an assistant professor of journalism at Franklin College. He lives in Bargersville with his wife and three kids.
