Category Archives: Now Showing

Now Showing

ALIEN: ROMULUS

Producers: Ridley Scott, Michael Pruss and Walter Hill   Director: Fede Álvarez   Screenplay: Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues   Cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu   Distributor: 20th Century Studios

Grade: C+

One good thing about this seventh film in the “Alien” franchise is that it hearkens back to the first two, inarguably the best of the bunch—Ridley Scott’s 1979 original and James Cameron’s 1986 “Aliens”—not only by being situated chronologically between the two but in having visual effects supervisor Eric Barba and special effects supervisor Gábor Kiszelly rely more on the sort of practical effects they employed as opposed to the wall-to-wall CGI so prevalent nowadays.  (To be fair, the third and fourth entries, by David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, have their moments, and Scott’s two prequels, “Prometheus” and “Covenant,” even more.  It’s the “Alien vs. Predator” spinoffs that have really given the series a bad name.)

In fact, the script for “Alien: Romulus,” by Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, might be thought of as variations on themes drawn from the initial two films, with just a dollop of Scott’s prequels tossed in at the end for good measure.  It even brings back, in a way, a character from the original film, though with a different name—though the decision requires the sort of digital razzmatazz that made Peter Cushing appear to live again in “Rogue One.”  (To be honest, the process doesn’t seem to have improved much in the intervening eight years.  The result remains more wishful than successful, though the plastic sheen is less irksome in this case.)

That will probably satisfy most fans, who were rather turned off by the cerebral, mythic tone of Scott’s return to the franchise.  But it does, of course, mean that a good deal of the movie is very familiar and, some will argue, it’s a kind of retread (as was another “Star Wars” movie, “The Force Awakens”).      

And there’s another drawback.  As director Álvarez has facility in building suspense; he showed that in the “Don’t Breathe” movies, despite their other problems, and it’s occasionally put to good use here.  At one point, for instance, it’s suggested that the characters threatened by the aliens might be able to mask their presence by raising the temperature around them to equal that of their bodies, making it impossible for the creatures to detect them so long as they keep still and quiet.  (It’s an idea, of course, that mimics “A Quiet Place” as well as “Don’t Breathe.”)  Another twist involving a change in gravity also has possibilities.

But such tactics are brushed aside fairly quickly in favor of a more hell-bent, literally go-for-the-jugular approach, complete with a raucous sound design and a score by Benjamin Wallfisch that’s extremely loud and insistent—even though Álvarez and editor Jake Roberts do slow things down for expository scenes and Wallfisch periodically inserts some allusions to the music by Jerry Goldsmith from the original.  But generally in its pacing and booming ambience (especially in IMAX), “Romulus” resembles contemporary horror movies more than the first two “Alien” entries, although in the grungy look (production design by Naaman Marshall and costumes by Carlos Olivares, as shot in dark, gloomy tones by Galo Olivares) it harks back to them.

As to the plot, it’s fairly simple.  On a miserable mining colony run by the notorious Weyland-Yutani Corporation, orphan Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) is informed that her contracted service has been summarily extended just as she’d hoped to depart for a more hospitable locale with Andy (David Jonsson), the once-trashed android her late father had reprogrammed as her protector, and whom she considers a brother dependent on her.  Disappointed, she’s approached by erstwhile boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) to join him, his sister Kay (Isabela Merced), his ill-tempered cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and Bjorn’s girlfriend Navarro (Aileen Wu), an accomplished pilot, in commandeering a ship to take them to a derelict corporate vessel threatening to crash into a ring of asteroids.  Their purpose is to access a store of energy that would allow them all to be kept in a cryonic stasis during a long journey to another, more livable planet.  They’re especially interested in Andy, whose programming will allow him to access the closed-off portions of the ship simply by inserting a finger into its various locks. 

Of course, things do not turn out as they expect.  The vessel, one half of which is called Romulus (the other, of course, is Remus) was actually a research laboratory devoted to experiments aimed at evolving the Xenomorph from the first movie into ever-more efficient workers and more advanced weapons.  And, of course, it’s not long before the beasts emerge and proliferate in various forms, up to and including a particularly horrifying human-alien hybrid that stars in the big finale.  Along the way to that denouement, there are a number of chest-burstings more graphic than John Hurt’s, lots of tentacle attacks, and plenty of jump scares occasioned by the appearance of the Xenomorph’s yawning visage, its teeth greedily at the ready.

Spaeny makes a sympathetic, energetic younger version of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, and Jonsson is equally fine, morphing from awkward to Spock-like as Andy’s personality is transformed by a change in programming initiated by that digitally-recreated returnee.  Unfortunately the remaining humans are little more than sketches serving as obvious morsels for the alien brood; the only question is the order in which they will be removed, and the gruesomeness with which they’ll be dispatched, though there is a curveball thrown by a pregnancy.

All told, “Alien: Romulus,” like the creature itself, does what it’s designed to do: provide jolts to the viewer (while gobbling up, the studio hopes, box office receipts).  But it brings little new to the table, and ends up a rather unimaginative, if undoubtedly busy, addition to the series.   

Now Showing

DUCHESS

Producers: Emily Corcoran and Krystina Sellnerova   Director: Neil Marshall   Screenplay: Neil Marshall and Charlotte Kirk   Cast: Charlotte Kirk, Philip Winchester, Colin Egglesfield, Stephanie Beacham, Sean Pertwee, Hoji Fortuna, Colm Meaney, Mellissa Laycy, Yan Tual, Boris Martinez, David Chevers, Harvey Dean, Jota Ramos, Iván Hermés, Giada Falzoni and Judy Donovan   Distributor: Saban Films

Grade: D

Neil Marshall, who showed modest promise in his early days with movies like “The Descent” and “Centurion,” has of late devoted himself to making showcases for his partner Charlotte Kirk.  The result has been a string of disasters like 2021’s awful “The Reckoning.”  “Duchess,” a terrible gender-bending rip-off of the British gangster movies of Guy Ritchie, adds to the woeful list.

With a tendency to preen, pout and pose seductively to camouflage the inadequacy of what passes for her acting and to disrobe as often as possible to show off her well-developed physique, Kirk plays Scarlett, a pickpocket who bumps into smooth diamond smuggler Rob (Philip Winchester); the two quickly fall into one another’s arms.  But all does not go well, because except for Danny (Sean Pertwee) and Baraka (Hoji Fortuna), Rob’s longtime crew turns against him, with slick, smiling Tom (Colin Egglesfield) the chief traitor.  Tom kills Ron and leaves Scarlett for dead.

So she’s out for revenge, a mission that consumes the second half of the movie.  It concludes with s clever plot Scarlett, now using the nickname Duchess, concocts—allowing Tom to capture and torture her and her cohorts for a while until a band of SWAT-like allies she’s enlisted show up with automatic rifles to blow away their most of their captors, except for a few whom our heroes are allowed to kill themselves.  Duchess takes on Tom mano a mano, showing the buff results from the training in the boxing ring Marshall periodically pauses to show us.

Given the small army of characters—Marshall is kind enough to freeze frame most on their initial appearance and post their names in large letters (a practice he repeats at the start of the closing credits), but it really doesn’t help—there’s a good deal of confusion about who’s doing what to whom, and why.  Only the main figures register as anything but blurs, and even they don’t have much personality.  There are a couple of familiar faces, like Colm Meaney, who does what amounts to a cameo as Scarlett’s imprisoned father, and Pertwee, who will be recognized by anyone who watched the “Gotham” television series (he played Arthur Pennyworth); and a few others, like Stephanie Beacham as a British crime lord, make an impression through sheer flamboyance.  But for the most part the supporting cast are nondescript. 

One exception is Egglesfield.  Tom’s supposed to be a fearsome villain, but the actor’s high-pitched voice and stilted manner make him more embarrassing than menacing.  Another is a rather handsome tiger, unidentified by the captioning, that’s kept by somebody at the bottom of a pit.  The animal serves as a body disposal mechanism; when a foe has been killed, they’ll often toss the corpse into the pit to be devoured, although there’s no explanation about how the bones are removed.  When someone wants to be particularly nasty, he’ll toss a captured enemy into the pit alive.  Not to worry: we don’t actually see the victim being clawed and ripped to shreds.  Marshall is content with sound effects of the tiger growling and the unfortunate person screaming in agony. 

It’s rather perplexing that, given the fact that the pit is readily available, Tom doesn’t use it to get rid of Rob and Scarlett, instead just assigning two nonentities to take them out on the cliffs of Tenerife, where Rob has his estate, and shoot them.  But had he used the tiger, Kirk wouldn’t have been able to sob histrionically over her lover’s dead body, one of her more melodramatically unconvincing moments.  Nor would there have been a second half to the movie, something viewers might have appreciated but which would have precluded the “clever” ending where Scarlett escapes an assassination attempt and seems poised for a sequel no one could possibly want.

One could go on about the technical inadequacies of the movie—the sloppy action choreography, the cinematography (by Simon Rowling) that’s grubby even when the locations are attractive and, at least as edited by Marshall and Adam Trotman, leaves the innumerable fight scenes and gun battles looking chaotic (the comic-book style transitional swipes are also an irritating tic), the mostly gloomy production design (Jonathan McKinstry), the irritatingly cheeky music (Paul Lawler), which tries desperately but futilely to persuade us that what’s transpiring onscreen is exciting and/or amusingly violent.

But enough. Marshall lacks the skill to mimic Ritchie’s signature style, and Kirk, a blank-eyed Bridget Bardot without the talent, is even less appealing a protagonist than Jason Statham.  As to the plot, a remark offered by Meaney in his cameo applies:  “Stop looking for it to make sense, because it never will.”    On the basis of their joint efforts thus far Marshall and Kirk may come to be regarded as the new Hugo Haas and Cleo Moore.