Notes on…

Alien: Romulus(2024)

Dir. Directed by Fede Álvarez

Disney is the Weyland-Yutani of 2024. At least we now know where the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth comes from now. After dispensing itself of having to make any kind of deeper philosophical or political message, the Alien franchise is rendered here as a pretty good horror/slasher film. Still, have movies got politically and sexually tamer in the past 40 years? It's hard to shake that feeling in the final act, with such long 'short shorts' (vs. Sigourney Weaver's underwear) and it shying away from the abortion symbolism as soon as it started. Now that would have been a jump scare. Anyway, what's curious about the references to the previous movies is that, save one obvious instance, they aren't especially insisted upon Better than it being a tedious 'remember this?!' parade of earlier (and better) memories that are winked to the audience, but hardly satisfying whether you get them or not, especially as there's a certain plastic quality to the references.

* * *

While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.