“Alien: Romulus” does so many things so well, that it’s a pity it’s not in service to a better movie. Director Fede Alvarez builds up lots of goodwill in the beginning of the film that it becomes heartbreaking to see all that excellent work get swallowed up by a screenplay (by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues) bogged down with too much nostalgia, too little logic, and a daft ending that repeats many of the previous installments’ same mistakes. Still, the lead actors are phenomenal, the set and costume design are great, and there are multiple clever and exciting sequences throughout. It’s just a shame so much is played as a greatest hits of the “Alien” franchise while also constantly feeling like each obstacle is presented like a new level in a video game (complete with way too many countdowns). “Alien: Romulus” has a lot in the “Pro” column, but it’s still not enough to escape the shadow of everything awkward, hollow, and bad about it.
Set chronologically between “Alien” and “Aliens,” “Alien: Romulus” centers around Rain (Cailee Spaeny), an off-world colonist working in the mines for mega-corporation Weyland-Yutani. She dreams of being able to go to another planet with her brother, Andy (David Jonsson), but the corporate structure constantly changes the rules and is leaving her behind on a dark and miserable planet. She’s approached by her old friend Tyler (Archie Renaux) to join with his crew (Spike Fearn, Isabela Merced, Aileen Wu) to go up to an abandoned space station and salvage it for some cryobeds that they can use to travel in as they fly to another planet. Once on board the station, though, it becomes apparent that it wasn’t simply decommissioned but that something terrible happened and seems like it’s about to happen again.
“Alien: Romulus” starts off with literally mining the fallout of 1979’s “Alien,” so perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that so much of the film is indebted to everything that came before. But after that salvage moment, there’s great production design and world building, all spearheaded by excellent performances by Spaeny and Jonsson. And, to be fair to the actors, no matter what the script throws at them or how the movie itself devolves over the course of two hours, those two leads stay committed and truly deliver outstanding turns that keep viewers more invested in what’s going on. Still, even with these great attributes, the cracks begin to show around the halfway mark when a dubious casting call is introduced (one that’s immensely distracting in how it dwells in the uncanny valley) and then proceeds to worsen from there.
The film is set up in such a way that the characters are presented with, essentially, new opportunities to level up multiple times throughout the film, very akin to video game scenarios. The objective is stated plainly, the limitations/threats are outlined, and the situation’s urgency plays out on the clock. You can practically see controls you’d have to implement in order to navigate a facehugger-filled hallway. And the countdowns…there are a lot of time-sensitive moments, often announced with a computer voice, that seem to wish to replicate the intensity of the self-destruction of the Nostromo in “Alien” or the impending nuclear devastation at the end of “Aliens.” It’s a cheat code for injecting a sense of danger that works a few times in “Alien: Romulus,” but becomes a tired trope by the end of the movie.
There are some strong practical f/x and sets in “Alien: Romulus” that are impressive and, coupled with the earnest portrayals by the actors, really sell the world that Alvarez is trying to (re)create. It’s also interesting to see the formula that the filmmaker has employed previously in “Evil Dead” and “Don’t Breathe”—a small group of put-upon outsiders think they’re facing one set of dangers before encountering something much worse—at work in the xenomorph universe. But the movie simply goes back to the well of what’s come before far too often, usually with a very pronounced quote or visual reference, so it feels less like a new entry in a franchise and more like a fan film that remixes what’s come before. And sometimes that can work, but in “Alien: Romulus” those citations and nods aren’t employed in the service of anything greater and it becomes a slog to get through. It references every “Alien” entry that’s come before (maybe not the “AVP” movies), including Scott’s prequels, that feels less like winks but instead like lazy copy-and-pasting to dull effect. And when the climax hits, which is fairly ridiculous for a variety of reasons, whatever initial dread and emotional connection was there for the first half of the film has completely dissipated.
“Alien: Romulus” is simply too much retread and not enough invention. Co-writer/director Alvarez previously found ways to riff on gags in his “Evil Dead” remake while adding all sorts of new threats and haunting visuals. That ability to synthesize the familiar with the novel is absent for far too much in his latest effort, with the film feeling increasingly hollow and repetitive as it trudges along. There is lots to praise in it, but there is also lots to bemoan, until eventually the detriments overtake whatever positive gains that “Alien: Romulus” scored early. Hopefully the future of the “Alien” series is more innovation and less imitation because the storied franchise certainly deserves better than this.
2.5 / 5 Stars
Starring: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn, Isabela Merced, Aileen Wu, Trevor Newlin, Daniel Betts
Director: Fede Alvarez
