The Xenomorph is a creature that looms large, if not most dominant, in the pop culture imaginations of kids who also grew up with the Predator, Gremlins, the T-800, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. But these days the impact of the creature through which Ridley Scott innovated space-horror and survival horror has been diluted. This is from lackluster crossovers and even Scott’s own sequels that were full of ambition and lore but just didn’t seem to hit.
Enter Fede Alvarez, whose vision is to bring Alien back to its horror roots.
The evil corporate overlords are still evil, synthetics are still shady AF, and we find ourselves packed into space vehicles designed with the same used-future aesthetic that helped make the original film have such a seemingly realistic and claustrophobia-inducing feeling. I really can’t get enough of the tactile inputs, the grainy cameras, the levers and buttons and everything that makes it all feel so drab and heavy and dreary.
So Alvarez takes all these elements that would be familiar to fans and uses them to create something that will appeal to both that demographic and to people who have never seen a Xenomorph, let alone heard of the Nostromo. No lore needed, no prior review required.
There’s enough nods, even from the start, but with a fresh cast and a story rooted so powerfully in the same world but significantly different from the others, it really feels like something that is fresh, even if it’s things we have seen before.
We are quickly introduced to our two leads, Rain (Cailey Spaeny) and her brother Andy (David Jonsson). Both carry the film, Spaeny proving a worthy torch-bearer to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. While Jonsson delivers a captivating performance, showing range and shifting so believably (I won’t explain further for risk of spoilers) from one kind of character to the next.
The siblings live on a mining planet that sees no sun. Rain dreams of one day living where there are sunrises and sunsets, and quickly enough in the film we are shown the desperate circumstances they and everyone else on the planet are in. There’s very little chance they are getting off that rock, let alone making the long voyage to a better planet.
That is until a ragtag crew is assembled that has a plan for a heist on a vessel that seems to be out in the atmosphere and for the taking. This crew, Spaeney and Jonsson included, look like they would fit in a teen slasher flick. And that’s the dynamic here, as we get youthful/immature bickering as a source of early conflict and a way to establish character. It’s really quite smart in its execution from the start.
And it gets smarter and smarter.
Where the newer Scott films focused on trying to to deepen the mythology or go philosophical, and where the AvP stuff was trashy and pulpy without much imagination, Alvarez takes Alien and makes a statement.
Sure he piles on more face-huggers, more aliens, more acid, more everything. But each escalation is masterfully prepared, so much is foreshadowed and crafted. Characters try to make the best decisions they can, but as they are confronted by increasingly disturbing circumstances you understand why they struggle.
It’s more than can be said by so much horror which relies on characters kind of stumbling about blindly and making bad decisions until they are turned into fodder.
Here the characters are competent (for the most part) and even though you know they are all going to wind up Xenomorph chum at some point, you are on the edge of your seat rooting for (at least some of) them to make it out alive.
The well-thought out story is supported, if not surpassed, by Alvarez’s directing. The visual style draws from the original’s tight spaces. But Alvarez also isn’t shy about pulling back, taking big shots, and creating some breathtaking sequences.
Even without any aliens in play, I could find myself holding my breath as ships lumbered through space, trying to dock. There’s zero-G action which, sure, we have seen elsewhere, but here done is such smart, novel ways that they make the device exciting again.
I think that’s really the bottom line here. There are recognizable devices. There are clear story engines (times clicking down, spaces to be traversed, etc). The characters feel familiar enough. The setting is familiar. Survival horror is familiar. Everything about this is something we might have seen elsewhere.
But the genius of it is Fede Alvarez finds some way to make all of these things we are all too familiar with incredibly fresh again. And it’s all so fresh that if this was your first encounter with this franchise, then I imagine you would feel pretty close to what a viewer in 1979 must have felt watching Alien.
The fear, the excitement, the moment you realize you hadn’t noticed you were holding your breath just the same as a character was, trying to be quiet lest that thing hear you. – Rappler.com