Title: Alien: Romulus
Describe This Movie In One Aliens Quote:
GORMAN: What’s the question?
HUDSON: Is this gonna be a standup fight, sir, or another bug hunt?
GORMAN: All we know is that there’s still no contact with the colony and that a xenomorph may be involved.
FROST: Excuse me, sir, a-a what?
GORMAN: A xenomorph.
HICKS: It’s a bug hunt.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Do you like the Alien movies? Fede Alvarez sure does.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 2.5 Caseys out of 5.
Tagline: “In space, no one can hear you.”
Better Tagline: “This isn’t what I meant when I said I need my space.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Rain (Cailee Spaeny) thinks she has enough hours to punch a ticket out of Weyland-Yutani’s mining colony, until the company doubles the exit requirement. Desperate to find a way out for her and her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson)android — sorry, artificial person — Rain turns to her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux). He has a plan to salvage an abandoned spaceship and get the cryo pods they need for the long trip to a free system. Why was it abandoned? Good question.
“Critical” Analysis: I said back in 2017 it was time to stick a fork in the Alien franchise.It was Covenant that prompted that statement, but it was merely the logical result of years upon years of diminishing returns.
The first two movies aren’t just one of the greatest one-two punches in movie history, they also stand atop their respective genres. Alien3 never had a chance, and the less said about Resurrection the better. It was at that point original director Ridley Scott temporarily took back the reins to tell the origin story, something nobody really wanted, leading to Prometheus and Covenant, the first prequels to the story of the Nostromo.
This may not come as a surprise to you, but a film series that hasn’t charted a coherent direction since 1986 doesn’t recapture the thread here. Alien: Romulus takes place in the years between the destruction of the Nostromo and the discovery of Ripley in stasis. That former ship plays a role early on, as a salvage mission to the wreckage yields the remains (?) of the very xenomorph Ripley blew out of the goddamned airlock in Alien.
After watching Romulus, it’s clear the movie isn’t for fans of Prometheus or Covenant (although there are callbacks to those films). Director Fede Alvarez, helming a script he co-write with longtime collaborator Rodo Sayagues, seems eager to distance this film from the narrative morass of the previous two movies. And that he does, but does it in such a way as to recall criticisms of how The Force Awakens plagiarized A New Hope.
Right out of the gate there are echoes of the original, and it doesn’t really let up. There’s Jerry Goldsmith’s Alien score and the unexpected return of an old nemesis. Pulse rifles and rescue subplots (and an iconic line) from Aliens, save points from the Alien: Isolation video game, and also more allusions to Prometheus (as well as the movie’s dedication to avoiding proper PPE requirements).
Spaeny deserves better than what the script gives her, and Jonsson runs with one of the few previously unexplored avenues of this universe: the malleability of an artificial person’s priorities. Do we mostly feel sorry for the ragtag crew (except for the guy channeling Liam Gallagher)? Sure, but with the understanding that most of these people are going to die, and an airlock/explosive decompression will be involved at some point.
So the good news is, if you like the Alien movies, then you’re in luck, because Alvarez shares your enthusiasm. The bad news is, maybe he likes them too much. Because outside of a handful of interesting ideas (zero gravity acid?) and an accurate take on capitalism, Romulus is a greatest hits compilation.
Until the end. And if Alvarez has leaned more into the horror of what takes place in the movie’s final 20 minutes instead of fan servicing us, maybe we would’ve come away with a more original vision. As it is, Alien: Romulus is mostly pastiche, albeit a beautifully rendered one.
Alien: Romulus is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
