Major spoilers ahead for Alien: Romulus. You’ve been warned.
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Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) is my favorite movie of all time. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it. And I never get tired of watching it. I own the awesome Blu-ray anthology box set (2010) as well as the 40th Anniversary 4K (2019). I have the poster in my office and Funko Pops, stickers, T-shirts and you name it. I even managed to find a plushie chestburster. So suffice to say, I’m a fan. A big one. In my opinion, it’s as close to perfect as movies get.
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So it’s with much disappointment that I’ve watched all the Alien flicks that have come after. Except for James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), of course, which is the only truly worthy sequel. And I’ve been even more disappointed with the most recent flicks, Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017), which, sadly, were directed by Scott. So I was ready to give up on ever seeing a decent Alien flick ever again.
But then I learned that famed horror director Fede Alvarez was going to be helming the new one, Alien: Romulus. And after seeing the trailer, I was hopeful that Alien would once again reclaim its place as the scariest sci-fi horror you will ever see.
And is it? Well…that depends on what you want from it.
The story begins amongst the drifting wreckage of the Nostromo (which there shouldn’t be anything left of after a thermonuclear detonation, but okay, here we go with retcon #1). A Weyland-Yutani ship captures something and brings it on board. Gee, what could it possibly be? Did you guess Xenomorph remains? You win the prize. (Even though the Xenomorph shouldn’t be anywhere near the Nostromo, but okay, retcon #2.)
Meanwhile, a young woman named Rain (Cailee Spaeny) sits serenely in a field, feeling the sun’s warmth on her face. But then she wakes up to the real world, a dark and dingy, Blade Runner-esque planet. Rain and her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson) go to a Weyland-Yutani desk at the Jackson’s Star mining colony, where they work. Rain presents paperwork that shows she’s fulfilled her contract and can now leave the planet. But the humorless agent informs her that the Company’s extended her contract. So she won’t be free to leave for another six years.
A dejected Rain finds a bunch of kids beating up on Andy, who seems like he’s mentally disabled. But as Rain helps him up, she opens up a slot in his neck and uses a sort-of key to “reboot” him. Yep, Andy’s an andr—I mean, “artificial person.” Rain then receives a message from her ex, Tyler (Archie Renaux), who asks her to come see him.
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Rain brings Andy with her to Tyler’s to meet the rest of the kiddie crew: Tyler’s sister Kay (Isabela Merced), cousin Bjorn (Spike Hearn) and their pilot buddy Navarro (Aileen Wu). Tyler tells Rain of their plan to scavenge a derelict Company station that’s drifting in orbit. Mainly, they’re looking to steal the station’s cryostasis pods, which Tyler says they should have enough for all of them. With the ability to go into stasis, they can travel to a planet called Yvaga (where Rain was originally wanting to go), nine years’ travel time away.
But to accomplish this, they need Andy, who can interface with the station’s computer (the infamous MU/TH/UR) to open doors and all that. Rain’s not too keen on the idea, but given that another six years in the same mines that killed her parents is her only other alternative, she agrees. The kids take off in a mining craft and once in orbit, are all happy to be able to see the sun – at least for a few seconds.
Then they arrive at the station, which is divided into two halves: Romulus and Remus (after the famous brothers who founded Rome). Tyler and Bjorn take Andy with them while Rain stays behind with Kay, who’s gotten sick. She reveals to Rain that she’s pregnant, by no one in particular. Tyler doesn’t know and Kay asks Rain to keep it quiet.
As the guys search for the pods, Rain asks why Bjorn’s being such a d*ck to Andy. Navarro informs her that a synthe—I mean, “artificial person,” caused the death of Bjorn’s parents when he sacrificed them to save a dozen other miners during a collapse. Oh, well, okay, he has angst. But he’s still a d*ck.
So then they find the pods, but it turns out there are only five. Not only that, but there’s only enough fuel for three years. The guys find another lab with the grisly remains of another synthe—I mean, “artificial person” who’s been torn in half (a là Bishop). Then they end up getting locked inside one of the rooms as the station somehow goes into a lockdown. Oh, yeah, and meanwhile there’s an entire wall of frozen facehuggers thawing out, which of course the Company thought it’d be a great idea to have.
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Rain and Navarro leave Kay to go help the guys. In order for Andy to get the guys out of the locked room, he needs an upgrade. So Rain takes it from the other artificial person. This one’s called Rook and turns out he’s one of the Ash models (the late, great Ian Holm, with Daniel Betts providing the voice) from the original. Tyler inserts the new module into Andy, and while he’s rebooting, the facehuggers thaw and start dropping into the water that’s nearly filled the room.
Of course, the kids have no idea what facehuggers are, but they know enough to fight them off as they start leaping around trying to latch onto a vulnerable face. The guys play facehugger baseball as Andy finally finishes rebooting. Everyone gets out and they manage to shut the door on most of the facehuggers – but one slips out and captures Navarro.
While they try to remove the facehugger, they all realize that Andy’s upgrade has changed his behavior. He’s not acting glitchy and telling bad dad jokes anymore. He’s a smooth and level-voiced professional now, one whose directive has changed from protecting Rain to protecting Weyland-Yutani.
After hooking him back up, they ask Rook what happened on the station. He tells them about finding the Xenomorph from the Nostromo and bringing it on board. Turns out it wasn’t quite dead and attacked everyone. They managed to kill it, but its acidic blood wreaked havoc on the station. Rain comes up with the idea of using nitrogen to freeze the facehugger’s tail off. It works and they pull an impossibly long tube out of her. Navarro wakes up and seems okay, but Rook warns them all that she’s doomed. They’re all doomed.
Bjorn and Navarro return to the mining craft, but by the time they get there, Navarro’s already feeling the movement in her chest. A horrified Kay can only watch as Navarro collapses and the chestburster emerges. As Navarro convulses, she kicks a lever that sends the mining craft careening into Romulus’ hangar. This in turn puts the station in a dive that will send them crashing into the rings around the planet in about 45 minutes.
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While Rain and Tyler head for the hangar, Andy speaks to Rook about their objectives. Then they come up with the idea of raising the temperature in the station as a camouflage against the facehuggers. Meanwhile, still inside the mining craft, Kay and Bjorn try to get out, but are now up against a full-grown Xenomorph (which apparently only takes a few minutes to grow). Bjorn tries to kill it with a cattle prod, but all that does is make holes that leak acid on him and kill him.
Kay tries to get away but is stopped by the closed door. Despite Rain’s begging (and revealing her pregnancy), Andy won’t open the door. So the Xenomorph snatches Kay and drags her away. Angry, Rain slaps Andy, but then immediately regrets it.
Andy takes them to another lab, where the scientists had been testing a human and Xenomorph DNA mixture. Rook says it’s called the “Prometheus Strain,” and has the ability to rebuild damaged tissue and heal sicknesses. They take a sample of it and watch part of a video of the mixture being tested on a rat and healing it. But they leave before seeing the rest of the video, where the rat mutated and died.
Andy also shows them where the weapons are – M-41 Pulse Rifles. (And even though this is taking place decades before Aliens, the rifles are significantly more advanced. Okay, retcon #3.) Then they find Kay cocooned and get her out. As they head for the craft, the Xenomorph attacks Tyler, killing him with a combo of its sharp tail and its inner mouth. When Rain leaves Kay to go get Andy, Kay takes the DNA sample and injects herself with it (even though she has no idea what it is or what it does, because that makes sense).
Andy takes out the upgrade module as Rook tells them their efforts are futile. And now there are a bunch of Xenomorphs heading for them (where they were all hiding I’d love to know). Rain gets the idea to shut off the gravity and shoot a bunch of holes into the Xenomorphs. The acid pools in midair and Rain has to float around it and use the rifle’s recoil to avoid it. The first Xenomorph catches Rain but then Andy intervenes and kills it with a painfully robotic recitation of the famous “Get away from her, you b*tch” line.
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Rain and Andy get back to the craft as the station starts hitting the rings. Rook pleads with Andy to follow his objectives, but they ignore him. Rook ends up dying with the rest of the station. Rain puts Andy in one of the pods, and Kay in another.
Then Kay starts having terrible pain, and Rain sees that her belly’s swollen. They both watch in horror as Kay suddenly gives birth to an egg-like pod. Acid burns through the floor sending the pod down with it. Rain goes to arm herself but by the time she gets back the new Xeno-human-baby-thing has grown to an enormous size (again, only taking minutes for this to happen). It kills Kay and severely damages Andy.
The temperature on board drops and Rain puts on a spacesuit. She tries to separate the cargo pod from the craft. But before she can flip all the levers, the Xeno-human-baby-thing attacks, sending them both into the vacuum of space. Rain uses her harness to flip the remaining levers and Xeno-human-baby-thing dies when the cargo pod crashes into the rings.
Rain does what she can for Andy and puts him back in one of the pods. Before putting herself in stasis, she records a message. She relays what happened and their plans to go to Yvaga. She’s unsure of what they’ll find, but she’s still hopeful for the future.
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I went into Alien: Romulus with cautious optimism. Really, I did. I was hoping I would love it. Even though Ridley Scott doesn’t seem to want to make Alien movies anymore, so much as he wants to ruminate on the morals and ethics of creating artificial intelligence that’s overly obsessed with playing the recorder. So having him on as producer isn’t the selling point that it used to be. Nor is it a guarantee of quality, sadly.
But having Fede Alvarez in the director’s chair, someone who’s proven himself adept at horror, became the selling point instead. His take on Evil Dead (2013), while devoid of its trademark humor, is some of the most extreme horror I’ve seen in recent years and dang scary. I trusted that he was not only a talented writer/director, but also a fan of Alien like I am.
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Unfortunately, though, what I got was unbelievably bad. While Alien: Romulus definitely nails the look of the original, it doesn’t nail much else. I mean, yeah, there are numerous facehuggers, a chestburster, a bunch of full-grown Xenomorphs and even that ugly, mutated Xeno-human-baby thing that I guess is supposed to reference the worst part of Alien: Resurrection (1997). There’s also the associated gore, but even that feels like Alvarez soft-pedaled it for some reason. So I will say this: if that’s all you want, then you’ll be very happy. Enjoy.
The only other thing Alien: Romulus seems to be concerned with is a condescending sort of fan service. I don’t know if Scott was ghost-directing or if Alvarez was the author of it all, but there’s a near-constant barrage of regurgitated dialogue and Easter eggs from the original and Aliens. Which would normally be cool, but in this case, it feels more like they’re laughing at us puny-brained fangirls and boys who they think only want regurgitated dialogue and Easter eggs. As if that’s all that makes a flick good and/or worthwhile. Who needs a well-written story and engaging characters when you have Andy saying, “Get away from her, you b*tch.” Yeah, great.
But what made me angriest was when they detoured into that lab with the “Prometheus Strain.” As soon as I saw that icky, black goop I nearly cried – and not with joy. Even when Scott’s allowing another director to take charge, he’s not, really. Everything still has to hook up to that idiotic Prometheus storyline. A storyline where, it turns out, humankind’s own mistreatment of AI is what created the Xenomorphs in the first place – which I guess is supposed to be clever and cruelly ironic. But what it really is, is a huge load of bullsh*t.
And there’s nothing much to say about the cast of kids except that they make adequate cannon fodder. At the end of it I couldn’t have told you what any of their names were besides Rain and Andy. Cailee Spaeny’s Rain is steadfast and smart, but she doesn’t get to do much else except mimic Ripley. David Jonsson’s Andy is the only character who stands out, let alone gets an arc. So the question of whether the posthumous use of Ian Holm’s likeness is ethical is the least of this flick’s issues.
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So whether Alien: Romulus is good or not depends on what you want out of it. If all you want are lots of Xenomorphs and facehuggers, dunking birds, out-of-place pulse rifles, re-used lines and cornbread jokes, you’ll have a great time. But if you’re looking for anything more than that, you’re better off just staying home, popping in your Alien or Aliens 4K (both are so worth the price), or even playing Alien: Isolation.
I have no idea if anyone who’s connected with Alien: Romulus or 20th Century will ever read this. But if they do, I have a favor to ask: STOP. Please, just stop. If Fede Alvarez couldn’t deliver, then I doubt anyone could. So please stop torturing us with these lame, unworthy, retconned excuses. Let the property die with some respect and fade into film history. Please. Stop ruining Alien’s legacy.
Directed by: Fede Alvarez
Written by: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues
Release date: Aug. 16, 2024
Rating: R
Run time: 1hr, 59min
Distributor: 20th Century Studios
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