Set 20 years after the original Ridley Scott-directed Alien, Alien: Romulus centers on a much younger but no less grungy group of characters who escape their mining colony home/prison planet in a stolen ship. Together, they head into space where there is a space station they believe has cryo-tubes that will freeze them for long enough to make the exceedingly long journey to a more habitable and far sunnier world. At the center of this adventure is a young miner named Rain (Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla, Civil War) and her synthetic human Andy (the remarkable David Jonsson, Rye Lane), whom she calls her brother when in fact her father reprogrammed the synthetic to have one mission: to look out for Rain no matter what. And it’s their ever-shifting relationship that keeps this movie moving and breathing and soaring to extraordinary heights.
Andy has frequent glitches, and those who come into contact with him treat him like a person with special needs; Rain frequently has to reboot him to stabilize his behavior, so his usefulness on this mission is questionable, especially since synthetics aren’t allowed on the planet they are ultimately heading to. Director Fede Alvarez (the Evil Dead remake, Don’t Breathe) and his team do a remarkable job making all of the environments feel lived in, worn down, and worked over. His skills as a world builder, using mostly practical sets and effects, makes Romulus all the more immersive.
Alvarez has clearly studied all of the Alien films, and pulls a little (or a lot) from each one, which may result in a few too many easter eggs, callbacks, and familiar moments. But it’s his new material that gives the film its fuel. In one terrifying hallway chase, the face-huggers and larger xenomorphs work in tandem to catch fleeing humans, and why wouldn’t they? They are working toward the same goals—to spread like the plague.
It turns out that the space station (actually a pair of them joined in the middle, named Romulus and Remus) does have the cryo-tubes but not enough fuel to keep them going the necessary nine years. However, the crew determines that the proper fuel is likely in the other half of the station, and it’s there that the teams of five humans and a synthetic come across a small army of face-huggers. They also come to realize that the supposed dead body of the xenomorph that Ripley shot into space at the end of Alien was only frozen and didn’t die, eventually recovered by this space station owned, naturally, by the Weyland-Yutani Corp., the corporate entity whose primary mission is to bring an alien life form back to earth, which we all agree is a very bad idea.
The rest of the film harkens back to Scott’s original premise that his movie is a haunted house in space, with monsters creeping out of the woodwork (or pipes) and scaring these unsuspecting humans or worse. Aside from Rain and Andy, the other human characters are mostly interchangeable, disposable, and under-developed, and I never really cared about them because they made consistently dumb decisions in a crisis, which immediately takes me out of any film. They try to save those who are beyond saving, and risking everyone’s lives in the process. Still, there’s something about the simplicity of the story and the believability of the environment that won me over almost completely.
I don’t normally look at other reviews before I write my own, but I was curious what people were saying about the film’s deepest connective tissue to the original Alien, which I won’t give away here. Not shockingly, people are already fighting online about this aspect of the film, which I didn’t have an issue with, other than maybe they rely on it too much for exposition and problem solving (and problem causing, if we’re being honest). I was especially impressed with Jonsson’s performance as Andy, who goes from spazzy robot to something much colder, driven, and less protective of his human sister.
Alien: Romuous is fast-paced, relentless, exceedingly violent and beautifully acted and plotted. It actually inspired me to revisit a choice few of the other Alien films in coming weeks and see how all of the puzzle pieces come together. I hope Alvarez gets a shot at another one of these, simply because this one is probably the third-best Alien movie, after James Cameron’s Aliens. This is also not a film to watch at home; it just wouldn’t be as fulfilling on a smaller screen or a lesser sound system. Take the plunge on the big screen, folks, and let the squishy sounds and acid blood work their way into your heart.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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