The Alien franchise will forever have the goodwill of genre fans thanks to the phenomenally great first two films and some of cinema’s most iconic creature designs, but the reality is that after 45 years, the bad has outweighed the good on the big screen. There are details and elements that can be appreciated in each of the sequels released post-1986, but each has outstanding and individual flaws that impact their overall quality. This steep decline has long left the title of “third best Alien movie” as relatively meaningless – but director Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus has now arrived to alter that perception.
Alien: Romulus
Release Date: August 16, 2024
Directed By: Fede Álvarez
Written By: Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues
Starring: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu
Rating: R for bloody violent content and language
Runtime: 119 minutes
Like Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Alien: Romulus has its issues (the biggest being unnecessary swings at fan service), but it’s buoyed by engaging characters as well as some freaky and great ideas that make exciting use of the existing toys in the sandbox. It’s not Álvarez’s most hardcore work, as it doesn’t quite deliver the freight train of horror that one might expect from the director of 2013’s Evil Dead, but it’s successful in making you both jump and squirm as protagonists fight for their lives against cinema’s legendary perfect killing machine.
Cailee Spaeny, who is quickly demonstrating herself as one of the industry’s most exciting young talents, stars as Rain Carradine – an orphaned young woman trapped as a Weyland-Yutani employee working on a sunless mining colony in space. Her only family is her “brother,” Andy (David Jonsson), a malfunctioning synthetic that Rain’s deceased father rescued from the trash, but she has friends, and it’s with their assistance that she is given an opportunity for escape and freedom.
Tyler (Archie Renaux), Kay (Isabela Merced), Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and Navarro (Aileen Wu) have learned that there is a derelict ship orbiting the colony, and with Andy’s help, they can steal cryopods and fuel that will allow them to travel off world to a safe planet called Yvaga. After the group launches for the heist, however, they are met with two surprises. The first is that it’s not a derelict ship in orbit, but a decommissioned space station. The second, and far more deadly, is that the reason the space station was decommissioned was because of consequences following experiments on a certain extraterrestrial discovered amid the wreckage of the USCSS Nostromo 20 years prior (for those not in the know, see: Alien).
Cool ideas and engaging characters together make Alien: Romulus a thrill.
Counting the (terrible) Alien vs. Predator movies, eight movies prior to Alien: Romulus have featured the nightmare antics of xenomorphs, chestbursters and facehuggers, but what’s most enjoyable about the new film is the way it keeps things feeling fresh. There are certainly beats of familiar horror – like the xenomorph’s second mouth penetrating a skull and impaling targets with its razor-sharp tail – but the terror will also have you instinctually lifting your feet as you watch a swarm of awakened facehuggers swim through a flooded lab space, and you’ll feel your blood get a bit colder witnessing the gross cocoon-like stage of development in the alien lifecycle.
Without getting too deep into spoilers, the new sci-fi horror blockbuster additionally finds cool ways to fold in surprising details Ridley Scott’s two prequel movies – and its greatest contribution to the canon is its inventive use of one of the xenomorph’s most dastardly qualities: its acid-like blood. Fede Álvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues find multiple excellent ways to utilize this dangerous asset throughout the story, with the coup de grace being a bold action sequence late in the second act that manages to be simultaneously intense and badass.
Exciting as it is to see this creativity on display, however, what really keeps you hooked into Alien: Romulus is its strong ensemble cast. It can’t be said that there is a tremendous amount of depth to the characters, but the filmmakers smartly establish personalities and dynamics without overburdening the audience with exposition, and the seeds it plants about each protagonist is effectively compelling – be it Bjorn’s prejudice against synthetics due to the death of his parents during a mining accident or the struggle that Rain faces knowing that she’ll have to leave Andy behind when she goes to the android-free Yvaga. The movie avoids giving anyone the aura of “cannon fodder,” making it a big surprise when anyone makes a hasty exit from the story.
The full roster of young stars is terrific, but deserving of special mention and highlight is the work of David Jonsson. There is a big change executed with Andy’s personality, as a module upgrade on the space station seems him switch from a sweet, buggy synth who likes telling corny jokes to a cold and calculated planner, and Jonsson navigates the material perfectly while sidestepping tropes and the overly familiar.
Alien: Romulus has a number of fan service moments that temporarily take you out of the movie.
The best aspects of Alien: Romulus are embedded in its ability to be inventive and surprising nearly a half-century into the existence of this franchise – but by that same token, it’s particularly disappointing when it makes overt and unnecessary moves to appeal to fans with nostalgia. I’m perfectly fine accepting Rain Carradine as an exciting new hero in the canon, and it’s completely unnecessary when the film tries to drill in shades of Ellen Ripley. Additionally, I really don’t need another character in this universe saying the line, “Get away from her, you bitch,” but the film decides to hit you over the head with it anyway.
I’ll further add that the biggest miscalculation in this department involves an early movie spoiler that I won’t give away here… but you’ll definitely know it when you see it. Part of the problem is underwhelming visual effects (and it’s an outlier given that most of the digital work is stunning), but it’s also unnecessary in the grander scheme and only done for fan service.
While Alien: Romulus isn’t as good a film overall as Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey, it does still provide a similar exciting rejuvenation energy for the franchise that has been missing for a long time. The filmmakers overthink some elements when it comes to giving the audience what it wants, but it mostly delivers.