THE 'Alien' franchise continues with the latest entry titled 'Alien: Romulus'.
The viewer is introduced to six young rebels stuck on a grim mining planet managed by the Weyland-Yutani conglomerate who hatch a plan to free themselves of a dismal life of servitude.
They sneak off planet in a vessel to go on a scavenger mission in a mysterious derelict space station in outer orbit to obtain the materials needed for their great escape.
But the seemingly abandoned floating base, which will be destroyed when it crashes into the ring belt of the planet after a given amount of time, is also inhabited by the deadly alien xenomorphs who have slaughtered the crew.
As the movie progresses, the characters get dispatched in gruesome ways one by one.
Hollywood-based Uruguayan director, Fede Alvarez, who also co-wrote the screenplay, brought his morbid creativity to the screen.
The production value was great and the movie was filled with great-looking sets, props and nice special effects for the most part.
Known for his chilling re-imagining of the similarly titled 'Evil Dead' in 2013 and the equally effective 'Don't Breathe' (2016), Alvarez knows how to craft a good horror experience.
The movie featured a dark and gritty atmosphere with a very bleak feel to the proceedings. It had interesting camera angles and great use of sound and music.
What the viewer hears, as well as the silent bits in other areas, really contributed to the impact of certain scenes.
Then there were also the familiar sounds from the other movies peppered throughout this one that would surely excite fans.
There were some genuinely thrilling sequences and gory scenes as well that were nicely rendered which added to the overall dread and horror of the movie.
There was also an action sequence involving a bunch of xenomorphs along a corridor that was executed well and it was something not seen before.
Alvarez is clearly a big fan of the franchise who loves the source material passionately which viewers would notice while watching this latest edition.
But therein lies the ironic weakness of this movie as well. It felt like Alvarez had selected various bits and pieces from the previous 'Alien' movies and cobbled them together to create this.
Some of the best bits from the other movies were present but, unfortunately, so were some of the bad bits.
And it was jarring to shoehorn in certain aspects, like an iconic line that was unnaturally delivered by one of the characters in a contrived setting.
The story also followed the basic beats of the first movie and a lot of the scenes were telegraphed beforehand so there was no real surprises as things started to happen in a predictable manner.
Thankfully the pacing was quick once things picked up from the slow start to introduce the characters and the setting which made it an easy watch.
There were a few twists during the latter part of the movie but if you had seen the previous movies already, none of it would have been a real shocker.
The actors did their best with what was given to them but unfortunately none of them really stood out except maybe for David Jonsson who played Andy the android reprogrammed by Rain's father as her surrogate brother.
Cailee Spaeny, who played the orphaned miner Rain, was alright as the female lead (but she's no Ellen Ripley as portrayed by Sigourney Weaver in the original Alien movie).
Viewers would be hard-pressed to really care for any of them, so their deaths were pretty straightforward affairs, even though they were carried out in a grusome manner.
Overall, it was still a good watch and entertaining enough. But what was lacking was any real originality for those familiar with the rest of the movies that came before.
It was great to be able to revisit the world of Alien and to experience a more desolate environment this time but there were moments when it did seem empty with nothing particularly new to say from a storytelling point of view.
Ridley Scott, who directed the first 'Alien' movie back in 1979 and is one of the producers for this latest one, has always had great visual flair.
He's done some great movies and some bad ones too but the constant thing in all of his work is that they always look great visually.
'Alien: Romulus' reminded me of that. But while it may not be the best in the franchise ('Alien' and the James Cameron-directed 'Aliens' from 1986 are definitively the Top 2 in any order), it certainly sits somewhere in the middle since there are other sequels that are pretty bad as well (even more so if the 'Aliens Vs Predator' movies are included).
Those new to the franchise may actually like this one better. That said, fans of the 'Alien' movies should also give it a watch if only to get a feel for nostalgia that seems to be what Hollywood is currently preddling to the masses.
NOW SHOWING
ALIEN: ROMULUS
Directed by Fede Alvarez
Starring Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu
Duration: 1 hr 59 mins
Classification: 16