«Alien: Romulus» brought back a star to the franchise «Alien» 1979 — but not in the way we would have liked

The film has been in theaters since yesterday and has prepared many surprises for fans of the franchise.

If you want to avoid spoilers — do not read this text.

«Alien: Romulus» — is the seventh main film in the franchise and the ninth including the «Alien vs. Predator» crossovers. It is also the first film in the series to be released after «Alien: Covenant» in 2017. It was directed by Ridley Scott himself, but after disappointing box office results, he handed over his responsibilities for the next film to Fede Alvarez and retained only a producing role.

Set between the events of «Romulus» (1979) and «Aliens» (1986), «Romulus» tells the story of a group of young people who encounter an alien life form on an abandoned space station.

The film stars Kaley Spaney, Isabela Merced, David Johnsson, Archie Renault, Spike Fearn, and Eileen Wu, but the cast of young characters also includes some familiar «— players, including actor Ian Holm, who played the android Ash in 1979’s «Alien».

In the original film, Ash met his end thanks to the efforts of Ripley and Parker, who made sure his head was blown off with a flamethrower, so there seemed to be no chance of the actor returning to the series. However, Alvarez found a way out: Holm simply played another character, Officer Rook, whom the group meets on the space station (or rather what’s left of him). This decision can be explained by the fact that Weyland-Yutani created a series of androids with the same appearance, so Holm easily took on the role of another character.

In fact, the director cast another actor in the role, Daniel Betts, who was made up as Holm (and probably added some digital tricks to resemble the main character), although both actors are mentioned in the credits. Does this make sense given that Ian died back in 2020? This is a question for the public.

Since yesterday, the movie «Alien: Romulus» has been broadcasting in Ukrainian cinemas since yesterday and has already received preliminary ratings on review aggregator sites: on Rotten Tomatoes, for example, it currently has 82% from critics and 88% from viewers. The reviews are generally positive and praise the quality of the special effects, sound, and strong cast — however The director himself is sometimes accused of lacking «a spark of originality».

Source: Games Radar