Alien: Romulus

Stars: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Isabela Merced. Archie Renaux, Aileen Wu

Director: Fede Alvarez

Same old, same old. The new Alien film is well-made and its three young stars - Spaeny (the rookie snapper from Civil War), Jonsson (Dom from Rye Lane) and Merced (formerly Isabela Moner of Dora the Explorer) - all do first-class work, but the deliberately retro plot is a dispiriting rehash of scenes from earlier films, notably the original Alien and its sequel, Aliens.

Once again, our heroine(s) cowers inches away from slavering alien jaws and tombstone teeth, and there are the customary - admittedly suspenseful - pursuits through the corridors of a space station (how many passages can one spacecraft hold?).

Working (and seemingly trapped) on a bleak planet, a group of cruelly exploited young mineworkers, headed by Rain (Spaeny) and her 'synthetic' - and sympathetic - cyborg Andy (Jonsson) see a chance to escape their miserable existence by salvaging escape pods from a derelict space station (named Romulus and Remus) floating overhead.

Of course, those yucky aliens, secretly bread by an unknown force, are lurking in the station on their arrival. Subsequent alien action is in (and on) your face, as the film remains a safe bet for horror fans, especially those who haven't seen the first two movies in the series. Darkly-shot camerawork gives the appropriate retro feel to an enterprise high on technical expertise but woefully low on originality.

David Quinlan

USA 2024. UK Distributor: Disney (20th Century Studios). Colour by Company 3.
119 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 18 Aug 2024