This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
and Remus
Plot Overview
Orbiting Jackson's Star
in the Yvaga System is a dark moon hosting a sorry mining colony.
Miner Rain Cardinn... (Cailee Spaeny) having just completed her contract
is nevertheless forced into an extension due to unanticipated
attrition. Her black factotum, android Andy (David Jonsson,) is abused
by punks while waiting for her to muster out at the colony office. Life is
tough in space mining, and the Weyland-Yutani Company puts profit before
people. A solution presents itself when a derelict space craft enters their
orbit, likely to contain the cryo pods
needed to make a long distance escape. Rain and a few others hit on an idea
like one espoused by author Douglas Galbraith:
The cure for
all these ills, for the implacable malice of the world? It could not
be more simple, more transparent in its logic, more compelling
in its morality or more audacious in its conception. We
should go begging no more to those from whom we had received so many
slights, but should make the lives we wanted purely through our own
efforts. Cut off from all that could betray or deceive, relying on
the purity of our own native will and genius, failure was impossible.
(137)
Using Andy as a mobile
terminal they are able to gain access to the drifting Renaissance
space station. It's divided into two sections: Romulus &
Remus—so named for the twins who founded Rome. The pods are
low on fuel, so they go to cryo storage
where they find the access codes encrypted. A convenient chipped android
solves that problem.
They discover alien eggs that have a vicious life cycle involving
humans in their metamorphoses. Shooting them is impracticable
because they will then leak acid threatening to breach the hull. Their
only option is to run, but where?
Ideology
An obscure biblical character Agur (Prov. 30:1) while not claiming to be any great one offers a chapter of advice to his buddies, (Prov. 30:2-3) “Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.” He gives four career nuggets sized down to his level: (Prov. 30:24) “There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:”
(Prov. 30:25) “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” The first career counsel is to start working early, in the summer of life. Rain has completed a twelve year contract and she looks to be about twenty. She started laboring in the mines as a child. Good work habits are thus early developed.
(Prov. 30:26) “The conies are but
a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” Their
dwellings offer them protection. The next important career step is
to settle in a good location. Humans are not well adapted to space,
especially where these colonists are. They're not exposed to the
diurnal sun cycle and their cramped quarters give rise to disease.
They need to get to Ivoca a nine year trip away.
(Prov. 30:27) “The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands.” Another step is to develop an informal support network. The company is not going to send her on her way, not anytime soon. But she can band together with a few compatriots who will commandeer an old orbiter, scavenge some needed cryo pods from a derelict space station, and off they go.
(Prov. 30:28) “The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.” That palace gets swept regularly, but the spider just puts up a new web. Seasoned science officer Rook (Ian Holm,) a badly damaged synthetic, is given new life to continue his work for the company.
Production Values
“” (2024) is set between the classics “Alien” (1979) and “Aliens” (1986). It was directed by Fede Álvarez who co-wrote it with Rodo Sayagues and Dan O'Bannon. It stars Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Isabela Merced, and Archie Renaux. Spaeny and Jonsson did a good job with what they were given.
MPA rated it R for bloody violent content and language.
Sets & models were used from its predecessor(s) making it
true to form if a little less surprising. Instrumentation
was cool retro knobs, buttons and displays. CGI was employed to the hilt. The blast
off shook the seats in the theater. Voices were sometimes hard
to understand due to unfamiliar accents, rushed delivery, and
acoustics. Runtime is 2 hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
The plot included a pregnant woman Kay
(Isabela Merced) with a tough choice to make, whether to use an untested
genetic boost derived from aliens adapted to space to modify her fragile
fetus. If you and your seatmates differ on whether a fetus is
a baby or a tissue mass, try it with a 75% human genome.
This one will work as a stand-alone, although anyone interested in it has probably seen one or more of the others in the franchise. Aside from holding fewer surprises, it's every bit as good as those predecessors. You almost need seat belts.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Absolutely amazing special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Don't watch this movie alone. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is taken from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Galbraith, Douglas. The Rising Sun. Copyright © 2001 by Douglas Galbraith. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001. First American edition. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org