Alien: Romulus
Just as Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was the first Planet of the Apes entry since Disney bought 20th Century Fox, Alien: Romulus is the first Aliens film under the House of Mouse. An interquel set between Ridley Scott’s (House of Gucci, Gladiator II) Alien and James Cameron’s (Pirahna II: The Spawning, True Lies) Aliens, Alien: Romulus is a warmed-over greatest hits repackaging featuring everyone’s favorite phallic xenomorph with enough interesting moments to make it the most memorable in the series since Prometheus.
Sick of struggling on the streets, Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her android buddy Andy (David Jonsson) join a group of ruffians to pillage a derelict space station for derelict cargo. However, they discover the cargo to be a bit more dangerous than what they expected.
Being the seventh mainstream film in the series (ninth if you count the Aliens vs. Predator motion pictures as part of the Alien franchise), Alien: Romulus repeats a lot of the expected beats. Not unlike Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley, it leans too hard on callbacks to the past film. Several iconic lines are quotes and notable camera moves are imitated.
Despite all this, Alien: Romulus improves as it goes along. David Jonsson is astounding as an evolving android who has really strong screen presence, so much so that it makes the other actors’ performances come off as weaker. Jonsson’s delivery (stuttering at first and later more crisp and confident) and body language (somehow both empathetic and robotic) makes one wish he were the main character in the movie.
Although intended as a standalone movie that also works as an entry point to new viewers (it’s unclear if it’s setting up a trilogy or not, although we’re getting an unrelated Hulu series titled Alien: Earth in 2025), the constant hammering of notes (literally, in the case of the score) from every film in the franchise gets rather tiresome.
The special effects, a mixture of practical and CG, are sometimes as appalling as the worst stuff in The Flash. A reveal towards the end of the film turns what’s supposed to be a mysterious and scary moment into an outright laughfest. Still, many of the action and suspense sequences are inventive, and it goes full circle with the series in a way that never seems contrived.
A mixed bag that somehow manages to be above average in spite of itself, Alien: Romulus has moments in space where you may scream, but you might not remember too much afterwards.
Alien: Romulus is now playing in theaters.