If Stiftung Warentest is already warning against nutritional supplements, it must be clear that self-therapy with alien DNA monster soup can only go wrong. But people want to know, in this case: how far the human condition can be optimized. The fact that the end result is a homunculus that looks like a giraffe dressed up as Nosferatu should give us something to think about.
But thinking, instrumental reason, is the problem. That was the case with all previous “Alien” films. A research-mad corporation wants to breed the creature of the future, but it does its own thing: hunting, eating, reproducing. The idea that the Enlightenment is turning into barbarism is old hat in cultural criticism, and since Ridley Scott had the eyeless space beast shoot out of a chest in 1979, every film in the series has been an illustration of exactly this idea: Man thinks his way out of his mind.
Director Fede Alvarez, an expert in hearty horror (“Evil Dead,” “Don’t Breathe”), poaches through the history of the “Alien” franchise, and once again it’s all there: the corrupt “Company” with its Darwinian megalomania; the slimy, edgy killer creatures; a group of brave heroes and heroines whose wits can barely keep up with the hunting instinct of their pursuers.
A little bit of AI is a must, after all, we are today’s film consumers. That’s why Rain (Cailee Spaeny), the heroine, has a sidekick, the shy, stuttering android boy Andy (David Jonsson). Programmed to protect his human girlfriend, he personifies the nice side of the Internet. He knows almost everything, always gives polite information and can be shut down, started up and upgraded as needed.
Andy becomes the central figure in the alien fight, not only because he can open electronic security doors with his index finger. He also calculates exactly the chances of survival that an actor made up of 100 percent biomass has when his opponent sprints faster than Noah Lyles and bites harder than the great white shark.
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The aliens have also been given an upgrade. They now have shiny chrome teeth in the style of grillz, the flashing tooth jewelry of gangsta rappers. Otherwise, they are once again playing the tried and tested role of the cultural pessimistic cipher: everything that can go wrong in the course of civilization – the alien represents it. Pandemic fears, genetic engineering madness, angry citizens running out of control: the alien’s appeal has always been its ability to connect to current fear scenarios.
Alvarez doesn’t even bother to give the monster a new dramatic purpose. If it says alien on the outside, it’s alien inside. Horror according to the WYSIWYG principle.
Learned from Cronenberg
The film is rated 18+, which is presumably due to the physical horror. The physical body is a breaking point in evolution; unlike the shell of the cyborg, it cannot be freely modelled and restored. When it comes to bursting ribs, exploding bellies and decomposing limbs, there is no dry eye in “Alien: Romulus”. This is meant literally: the heroine’s tear-stained, horrified look is at least as structural as the monsters’ baring teeth. Alvarez learned here from the veteran horror film star, David Cronenberg.
Fighter with the highest empathy ratings: Cailee Spaeney (left) with David Jonsson in “Alien: Romulus”AP
He showed in his films that an exploding universe is bad, but an exploding thorax can be even worse. We humans insist on a minimum level of consistency in our appearance. The fact that something extraterrestrial liquefies our form is not only terrible, but also disgusting.
Horror and disgust are the two emotions that Alvarez expertly exploits with his aesthetics. The fact that Rain toils like a slave in the mines of a planetary colony in order to buy her freedom at some point is quickly forgotten. By the second act at the latest, the anti-capitalist aspects of the story have dissolved in the acid bath of body horror.
Femininity between adaptation and revolt
The identity debate – keyword: highly intelligent machine beings and their ontological status – is only touched upon in a few scenes. Andy, brilliantly played by David Jonsson as a nerd with Robocop qualities, puts up with being scolded and pushed around by his fellow fighters. In the end, however, everyone is happy that someone is saving them at all. In the face of rows of grinding teeth, it doesn’t matter whether the helping hand is made of cell tissue or latex.
Cailee Spaeny was Elvis’ wife in “Priscilla” and Jessie, a war photographer, in “Civil War”. In both roles she showed that weakness and dependence can be the breeding ground for emancipation. She brilliantly enriched her portraits of women with gestures typical of each era and environment and went beyond them in her acting. In just two films she managed to portray a modern femininity between conformity and revolt.
In “Alien: Romulus” she appears as a fighter with the highest levels of empathy. Just because your best friend is made of wires doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be seen as a human being and treated accordingly. Compassionate and defensive: that’s how contemporary action heroines appear.
Thankfully, the days when Angelina Jolie had to combine ballistic and pornographic visuals in her role as Lara Croft are over. In newer action films, the cleavage is no longer a visual stimulus for voyeurs, but the place where the heart is, in the right place.
Naturally, the aliens don’t care about this, the biters are only interested in venting their urges. For efficiency apostles, this may be the latest thing in tuning our species. Everyone else finds it annoying and prefers to remain human and weak.
