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.
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.
It’s unclear whether or not a remake of the blistering 1984 Stephen King movie “Firestarter” is a burning concern for audiences, but here we are with a new version of an old story, in theatres now, about a young girl with pyrokinesis.
All parents think their child is special, but Andy (Zac Efron) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) truly know their daughter has a gift. “You’re going to change the world,” he tells her.
Years ago, Andy and Vicky were injected with an experimental serum whose side effect left them with telepathic abilities, which they passed down to the daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) along with the talent for conjuring up heat and fire when angry or in pain.
For a decade they have been on the run from a secret government agency who wants to kidnap Charlie and study her superhuman power. Up until now they have trained the preteen to control her fiery ability, but as she grows up it becomes harder and harder to manage. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Charlie says, “but it feels kind of good.”
When the family’s location is accidentally revealed, a mysterious government operative (Michael Greyeyes) is sent to bring her in as Andy and Charlie look for sanctuary.
The big question about “Firestarter 2.0” is whether or not it improves on the 1984 original. That movie was unfavorably compared to “The Fury,” a 1978 Brian De Palma film that treads, more successfully, similar ground. Looking back now, the original “Firestarter” isn’t a great movie but it does have George C. Scott in full-on menacing mode and a cool soundtrack from Tangerine Dream amid the flames and fire.
Does the new movie bring the heat?
In another cinematic multiverse (which is o-so-hip right now) Charlie could have been a member of the X-Men Jr. or the Preteen Fantastic Four, so it makes sense, particularly in today’s superhero happy market, that the new movie leans into the science fiction and allegorical aspects of the story over the horror. It’s just too bad it doesn’t do much with either approach. Charlie spits fire, and things burn but, cinematically, nothing really catches fire.
The paranoiac feel of government interference is gone, replaced by long boring stretches of exposition and Greyeyes’ underused villain. Set to an interesting score by legendary director John Carpenter (with Cody Carpenter and Daniel A. Davies), who was supposed to helm the original film, the new version gets the soundtrack right, but most everything else feels like a backfire, rather than a “Firestarter.”
In “Come Away,” now on VOD, Julia Sarah Stone plays Sarah, a young woman with a sleeping problem. A teen runaway, she splits her time between crashing at her friend Zoe (Tedra Rogers) and sleeping in the park. No matter where she lays her head she never gets enough sleep. Terrible nightmares keep her awake, leaving her on the brink of exhaustion all the time. No amount of coffee can keep her eyes open, and she’s even started dozing off in class, earning jeers from her classmates.
Tired of waking up tired, she signs on for a month-long university sleep experiment. Not only will it provide a comfortable place to sleep every night but she’ll also make some money acting as a guinea pig for a team of graduate students, including Jeremy (Landon Liboiron) and the mysterious Dr. Meyer (Christopher Heatherington). Outfitted with futuristic looking head gear, she settles in each night and at first she feels more rested than before. But as the experiment goes on the nightmares take hold, opening up a terrifying window into her psyche as she begins to wonder what the point of the science project actually is. “I think your science project is f***ing me up,” she says.
If you are someone whose worst nightmare is waking up next to someone who says, “I had the weirdest dream last night,” and proceeds to tell you all about, “Come True” might not be your cup of Ambien. If, however, the existential horror of a mind run amok during sleep fascinates you, then seek it out.
Director Anthony Scott Burns takes an icy, voyeuristic approach to the material, staging scenes of nightmarish terror and the clinical reaction to the patient’s deepest thoughts with an aloofness that relies on atmospherics to create the film’s uneasy vibe. It is ethereally effective, particularly when coupled with Burns’ eerie composed score.
The dreamscape scares are cerebral. Imagine if David Cronenberg had directed “Nightmare on Elm Street” instead of Wes Craven and you’ll get the idea, but the film is let down by an ending that doesn’t do what came before it justice.
“The Meg” stars Jason Statham. There’s a giant shark. Its tagline is “Pleased to eat you.” There is no need for a review. You know exactly what you’re getting into here but, because I am paid by the word, here we go.
Based on the book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror by Steve Alten, “the Meg” sees action-man Statham play Jonas Taylor, a rescue diver who must face his fears to save the crew of a marooned deep-sea submersible from a fate worse than sharknado. Think Quint from “Jaws” without the expressive range. Years before Taylor narrowly escaped being eaten by a 70-foot shark, the Carcharodon megalodon—“Meg” for short—a 100,000 pound, prehistoric great white thought to have been extinct for about 2 million years. Now it appears the giant beast is back and hungry for the crew trapped inside the submersible. Hired by Chinese oceanographer (Winston Chao) Taylor must not only save the stranded sailors but also make sure the Meg doesn’t eat the world… or something. “Man versus Maggie isn’t a fight,” he grunts, “it’s a slaughter.
“The Meg” tries to take all of the thrills of Shark Week and compress them into two hours. It almost gets there but not quite. There are some silly thrills but humungous squids, scientific mumbo jumbo and b-movie dialogue that would make Roger Corman blush buffer the excitements.
“The Meg” is ridiculous. Start to finish. It’s a giant shark story that plays like a watery “Valley of Gwangi.” The key to its ridiculous effervescence is twofold. First, the aforementioned giant shark. Second, Jason Statham, the po-faced hero who, deep down, knows this is silly but is too stoic to admit it to himself or to us. Some people are method actors, relying on past experiences to create their performances. Statham simply glowers. He’s an actor whose dead-eyed stares make up 95% of his method. Running, punching and blowing up sharks comprise the other 5%. Range? He don’t need no stinking range, he just needs to save the world or at least whatever is in peril. A reassuring presence, he’s exactly the same in every movie regardless of the plot. No surprises, just extreme machismo with a side order of sentimentality. Here it works. He’s like a silent movie star, easy to read and fun to watch and without him “The Meg” wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
“The Meg” has a few scenes that’ll make you chew your popcorn a bit faster and doesn’t skimp on the silly. In fact, there probably won’t be a more hare-brained underwater adventure this year until “Aquaman.”
