Posts Tagged ‘Archie Renaux’

ALIEN: ROMULUS: 4 STARS. “uses nostalgia for the original as a springboard for new ideas.”

Recently Cailee Spaeny played the wife of one of the most famous musicians on the planet as the title character in “Priscilla.” In her new film, “Alien: Romulus,” a standalone “interquel” set between the events of “Alien” and “Aliens,” she trades her ex-husband Elvis’s Graceland for another weird, otherworldly place—outer space.

In the new film, the seventh installment in the “Alien” franchise, Spaeny plays Rain Carradine, a new style Ellen Ripley, and one of a group of space scavengers fleeing their home planet, a dystopian hellhole run by a company whose ironic slogan reads, “Building a Better World.”

“The company is not going to give us anything,” says Bjorn (Spike Fearn), “we have to take it.”

To avoid working in the company’s mines, a small group, including Rain, her model ND-255 synthetic “brother” Andy (“Industry’s” David Jonsson), her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux), mine workers Bjorn and Kay (Isabela Merced) along with pilot Navarro (Aileen Wu), set off to rummage parts from a decommissioned space station. But instead of space pods and spare parts, they discover the universe’s most horrifying life form, the Xenomorph.

A horror film set in space, “Alien: Romulus” is a back-to-basics movie that owes a debt to the first two films in the franchise. The first part is all atmospherics and world building, reminiscent of the creeping dread that defined the original film. From the forty-five minute mark—the first Facehugger sighting—director Fede Álvarez amps up the action and the stakes, dispensing the fast-paced intensity of James Cameron’s “Aliens.”

The result is a movie that finds a way to use our nostalgia for the original films as a springboard for some new ideas. Álvarez, along with co-writer Rodo Sayagues, steers the story to a wild final act that stays true to the franchise, but combines sci fi and body horror in an unforgettable, spine-chilling fashion.

Seven movies in (plus two “Alien vs. Predator” crossover flicks) nothing will ever beat the original chest-bursting scene for sheer shock and awe, but “Alien: Roimulus’s” aggressive Facehuggers and Xenomorph are still potent horror images.

They’re iconic in their hideousness, drip acidic blood, and, if that wasn’t enough, force their proboscis down throats to impregnate their victims. Álvarez uses them to unnerving effect, mixing the creatures with a zombie synthetic character, some House of Horrors visuals and enough graphic, gory and grim practical effects to provide a pedal to the metal thrill ride.

“Alien: Romulus” doesn’t have the thematic depth of some of the other films in the series, but it delivers a crowd-pleasing and exciting link between the first and second movies on the “Alien” franchise timeline.

RICHARD NEW MOVIE REVIEWS COMING THIS WEEK – AUGUST 16, 2024!

I’ll be reviewing four movies this week, everything from aliens and penguins to a coming-of-age story and a family drama. All reviews posted on Thursday, August 15!

Set between the events of “Alien” and “Aliens,” “Alien: Romulus,” a new sci fi flick now playing in theatres, sees a group of young space colonizers scavenging a derelict space station, only to discover the most terrifying life form in the universe.

In “My Penguin Friend,” a new family film starring Jean Reno and a penguin, and now playing in theatres, a Brazilian fisherman discovers an injured penguin drifting alone in the ocean, near death and covered in oil from a spill. He rescues the animal and rehabilitates it, forging an unconventional lifelong friendship.

In “Good One,” a new drama now playing in theatres, a father, his daughter and his best friend take a weekend backpacking trip in the Catskills. When tensions arise between the old friends, the daughter is caught in the middle, wedged between the clash of egos between her father and his oldest friend.

In “Close to You,” a new family drama now playing in theatres, Academy Award Nominee Elliot Page stars as a trans man who returns to his hometown for the first time in years.