‘Alien: Romulus’ Review
Despite having decades to figure out the right formula for the franchise, there’s never seemed to be a solid understanding of what makes an Alien film effective. For a long stretch, the belief was that it needed a human character to empathize with, which explains the constant need to bring Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) back throughout each entry. However, the franchise never found a sturdy foundation after James Cameron’s successful genre shift from horror to action with Aliens. It floundered throughout the 2000s, being injected into a franchise crossover with the Predator in the Alien vs. Predator films, and then polarized audiences when Ridley Scott returned to the franchise for his more philosophically-minded prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
However, the latter formulated a blueprint for what would eventually seem like the answer to the Alien formula problem. As seen in Fede Alvarez’s latest film, Alien: Romulus, the xenomorph is not just a slasher stand-in where new characters are introduced only to have them systematically killed off one by one. It’s a little more than that. Alien: Romulus and Alien: Covenant share very similar DNA in that they are continuations of the franchise while also placing new characters within a haunted house that increases the intensity with each new set piece, while still building upon the mythos that came before it. However, where Scott’s film balanced philosophical ruminations on creation and God with a violent, unforgiving world, Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus is much less interesting and far more indebted to its amusement park structure as characters move from one harrowing predicament to the next, forced to improvise a solution to avoid meeting a perilous fate.
Alien: Romulus is a slick and playful entry into the long-running franchise that deals in homage and, strangely enough, feels ripped from the 2000s - the decade that never saw a standalone Alien film. Evoking video games - god help me, I couldn’t stop thinking of the 2005 Doom adaptation during this film as well - and teen horror films in more ways than one, Alvarez takes a new crew of desperate young adults into the jaws of oblivion as they try to make their own luck by stealing cryostasis chambers from a dormant spaceship just outside their mining colony. At the heart of the expedition are Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her best friend, an android named Andy (David Jonsson). When recruited by her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) and his crew for the mission and a chance to escape their doomed fate running errands for Weyland-Yutani, they find themselves trapped between a rock and a hard place.
Needless to say, a xenomorph is also aboard the seemingly abandoned spaceship and a few other Weyland-Yutani secrets that fans of the franchise will likely eat up without much criticism. Most of the film’s homages and direct references to previous films in the series are harmless at best. None are particularly entertaining, but timeline-wise, Alien: Romulus finds itself situated between Alien and Aliens, forcing it to engage with a xenomorph in the middle of a franchise where Ripley was the driving force behind conflict with the alien but is currently in stasis floating around space. Where Alvarez could have fun with that gap in time, his screenplay (co-written with Rodo Sayagues) genuinely does not seem that concerned with the overarching story of the franchise and more with playing with the elements already provided by the franchise.
Unfortunately, this is why its homages are less fun than they could be and ultimately make the film feel more like J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens—a sequel that doubled as a safe reboot to allow Disney a chance at another dependable and hefty revenue stream. That The Walt Disney Company officially acquired the Alien franchise when it integrated the 20th Century Fox film library into its own only stokes the imaginations of the cynically minded. That being said, Alien: Romulus is still an entertaining movie, even with its allusions to past entries (and weirdly shares some similarities with Alien: Resurrection, which takes place later in the series timeline). That’s because Alvarez acts like a kid in a candy store, creating memorable moments of tension within an unrelenting barrage of spectacle. Every element of the Alien universe feels oppressive and terrifying in Alien: Romulus, to the point where even the silliest moments still instill a bit of fear.
The notable standouts are Spaeny and Jonsson, who embody characters broken in their own way. Once the narrative starts moving at a more brisk clip, their chemistry keeps things from feeling like a meaningless roller coaster ride. Jonsson, in particular, plays a more sizeable role as Andy than Spaeny despite being perceived as the sidekick to her objectives. Andy is another excellent addition to the line of synthetics that has provided the franchise with some of its most surprising thrills. This is primarily due to Jonsson and his predecessors portraying androids as hostile yet necessary. They are the backbone of Weyland-Yutani, and while they are just as expendable as humans seem to be, they are also entrusted with more than their mortal counterparts.
While the rest of the cast gives solid performances, especially Aileen Wu, who has one of the more memorable moments in the film, Alien: Romulus ultimately requires an ensemble of sacrificial lambs for the movie gods. Blood must be spilled, and unsurprisingly, Alvarez is dialed into how to make a single setting into a constant stream of horrific violence. While his 2013 reboot of Evil Dead had some tonal inconsistencies with how it approached its horror, Alien: Romulus is far more consistent and uncompromising. With no actual tenets to abide by other than the inclusion of a xenomorph, an android, an expendable cast, and constant reminders of Weyland-Yutani’s involvement in humanity’s struggles, Alvarez and Sayagues’ screenplay yields some of the most entertaining moments of the franchise. It gets bogged down now and then with wanting to justify some of its antics, but its dedication to crafting each scene as its own ride in an amusement park outweighs the occasional groan of unnecessary exposition.
Unfortunately, where that all falls apart is in the final act. It’s almost comical how quickly the movie shifts once it starts showing signs of exhaustion and dives headlong into one of the silliest moments of the series. While some of the film’s earlier, more questionable digital inclusions from the past instigate an eye-roll every time they appear, it’s the final act where I was stunned by the swing Alvarez takes. It’s where it becomes painfully apparent that Alvarez is a huge fan of what I would consider the worst film in the franchise: Alien: Resurrection. While he handles the insanity of it better than Jean-Pierre Jeunet, it’s still a silly final act far less terrifying than the rest of the film due to its risky concept in a movie that seems to play best when it is working within the basic understandings of the series. The swing is a massive miss, and it compounds the film’s already dodgy use of artificial intelligence and CG earlier on. However, Alvarez took a much more successful swing with his Evil Dead reboot’s finale, so it’s hard to blame him for trying again here. It just doesn’t amount to something that feels tonally in the same wheelhouse as the rest of the film.
The highs of Alien: Romulus remain the general highs of the franchise: it’s an aesthetically gorgeous world that lends itself well to the immersive qualities of horror. As always, the sound design is impeccable, and the imagery is terrifying. While not all kills are as gnarly as the previous, they each thread the needle between grotesque and violent in exciting ways that play within the established threats of the universe. It’s one of the few science fiction-horror hybrids where both elements are integral to the other’s effectiveness. Alien: Romulus doesn’t deserve to be remembered for its missteps because its resounding strength is its assured, confident understanding of what the franchise is: a horror theme park where capitalism and greed fight against the terrors of space - with humans forced into the middle of it all.
