By David Dent
Fede Alvarez, the Uruguayan director of 2013’s Evil Dead reboot and the excellent Don’t Breathe (2016) has been visiting the UK to talk about his latest project, Alien: Romulus.
A London preview audience was given the opportunity to glimpse a 13-minute digest of the film, edited by the director in such a way to give people a teaser of the mood of the film rather than spoiling any of the plot.
And those 13 minutes gave a great taste of the movie, in preparation for its release to UK cinemas on 16 August. It’s loud, it’s grungy and looks fabulous.
The latest film in the long-running Alien franchise is set at some point after the end of the first movie but shouldn’t be seen as strictly chronological. We still don’t know much about the plot, apart from it involving a young group of space colonisers who encounter a derelict space station, seemingly empty but containing a whole legion of Xenomorphs.
Alvarez confesses that he was “old enough to have seen Aliens at the cinema” on first release, and was hooked on the franchise from then on. The idea of a sequel had been in his mind since 2017, but 20th Century Fox picked up on the idea sometime later. Ridley Scott contacted Alvarez – apparently, the first Zoom call was terrifying for the young director – and a deal was done.
One of the main takeaways from the extract shown is the amount of practical effects work involved. Inevitably there’s some CGI – it’s set in space after all and is appropriately impressive – but for the most part, this is as gloopy and tentacular as fans would expect (rather a far cry from the last two franchise instalments); and the director confirmed that what the audience saw was just a smattering of what to expect in the full movie. Alvarez proudly told the audience that as well as using special effects teams from other franchise entries he wasn’t above helping out on puppeteering duties in the young alien scenes; he seems like a personable can do director with a genuine passion for cinema, and I for one am looking forward to the summer launch of Alien: Romulus.
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