‘Alien: Romulus’ Review: The Xenomorph Has No End

‘Alien: Romulus‘ It’s not exactly a reboot of the series’ founding film, ‘Alien, the eighth passenger’since it uses as a link a significant character from that one –beyond, of course, the reappearance of the xenomorphs–, which places us chronologically at an indeterminate moment between Ridley Scott’s film and James Cameron’s ‘Aliens: the return’. But for practical purposes, it is a Remodeling of the first film to fit current times: an unalterable space and a group of people threatened by the deadly creature, only now they are much younger than the Sigourney Weaver and John Hurt of yesteryear.

The action begins in a troubled mining colony and a young collector, Rain (Cailee Spaenythe Priscilla Presley of Sophia Coppola’s film), takes on the manners of the determined Ripley. The Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez turns the abandoned station into a much darker setting than the Nostromo ship in ‘Alien’, and the robot in this case is black-skinned, a defective synthetic that plays a lot of role in the plot.

Ridley Scott and Walter Hill, as producers, maintain the initial spirit of the xenomorph saga, but it is Alvarez who makes intelligent decisions such as using a ‘vintage’ aesthetic (computers, screens) in keeping with the relationship that his film has with Scott’s, made in 1979. Specialized in renewing horror franchises – he directed the new version of ‘Evil Dead’ and is responsible for the plot of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ –, Álvarez has no problem repeating iconic shots from the Alien saga while inventing very original situations such as the acidic liquid in the anti-gravitational field..