Written by Cameron Geiser

Warning: There are mild spoilers for Alien: Romulus in this review. Reader discretion is advised.

Fede Alvarez’s latest romp in established Horror franchises has landed him squarely in the far flung future of the Alien film series. While I enjoyed this attempt more so than his take on Evil Dead (I prefer Lee Cronin’s stab at the franchise from last year with Rise) in 2013, Alien Romulus is a bit of a mixed bag. This is the most divided I’ve been on an Alien movie for a long time though, in fact it’s probably my third favorite in the entire series. However I am one of those people that actually enjoys Alien: Resurrection, it’s not good, but I get a kick out of it. Which is almost where I’m at with Alien: Romulus. It’s good, but it’s just not great.

The best part of the whole film though is in the world design, the production, the practical effects and animatronics. More so than any other sequel (except Aliens obviously) Romulus feels like it exists entirely within the same continuity and technology as the original Alien film. The nostalgia of it all works here without being too overdone. That comes later in the film. Reliance on recreating phrases and story structure felt a bit heavy handed at times, though it does feel like it’s coming from a place of earnest love for the original films. There is originality in play though, fret not. I may not love some of what happens in the bonkers third act, but overall I’d say the film works well enough as a crowd pleasing frightfest at times. Other times however…. there are less than ideal story beats or character choices that feel a bit… stupid. I mean stupid both ways, both in the moment for the characters, but also in the screenplay. It’s nothing horrifically egregious, but just sort of groan-inducing “Wow, that’s stupid” moments sprinkled in the back half of the film.

The story at hand is mostly perfunctory and obligatory, but it works for the structure of scares that Romulus is crafting. In the wreckage of the Nostromo (The space-truckin ship from the first film) a drone ship from “The Company” inspects the debris and brings aboard a Xenomorph, fossilized by the explosion of the ship. Once brought aboard a Weyland-Yutani space station (the titular Romulus) they crack that sucker open and begin all sorts of experiments that obviously go horribly wrong. Fast forward to several Mining employees struggling to escape the capitalistic hell of the Weyland-Yutani colony Jackson’s Star as they catch wind of a virtually unknown space station entering the colony’s gravitational pull. The scrappy crew decide to sneak into the station to obtain enough cryo pods for their ship to sustain the nine year journey to the planet Yvaga. Which is conveniently located in a system where Weyland-Yutani has been outlawed. As you might have guessed, things don’t exactly go according to plan once aboard Romulus.

*Alien: Romulus* is an entry in the *Alien* franchise with strong intentions but glaring missteps.

The cast does a competent job with the material given to them. Though I was most impressed with Cailee Spaeny as Rain, the lead heroine and best main character since Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. David Jonsson also does an impeccable job as Andy, the new synthetic Android of the film. Everyone else is “fine”, they don’t really detract from the film, except for stupid choices written for the characters to make. But I digress, the weirdest part of the film cast-wise was the befuddling decision to reanimate Ian Holm as “Rook”, another model of the synthetic Android he portrayed in the original Alien, with that model going by the name “Ash”. The use of Ian Holm’s likeness was a strange choice. While it was nice to see him again in this film series, it felt wrong and yet still within that uncanny valley of strangeness. It looked better than the de-aging technology for Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones in last year’s Dial of Destiny, but it still felt like the wrong choice to make here. There are so many young working actors that could have either played that same character or simply been another model of the Android similar to how Andy works in Romulus.

The third act in particular was essentially where I started to become less engaged with Romulus. Bringing aspects of Prometheus and Covenant into Romulus didn’t ruin it for me, but let's just say that things evolved quickly into the “Oh that’s not scary, that’s just goofy looking” camp for me personally. My last gripe is that while I know and understand that all of the Alien movies are inherently sexual visually, Romulus goes way over the top with it’s stimulus for sexual imagery and rape-adjacent visuals. I get it. Maybe I’m just an old man watching movies now, but it felt a bit much. Admittedly though, one thing I did quite enjoy was the portrayal of Weyland-Yutani as the corporate profit-hungry monsters that they are. I particularly loved anytime they were simply referenced as “The Company”, but especially when Rain was on Jackson’s Star and met her quota of credits but then her credit requirement simply raised to a disgusting amount and was told “Get back to the mines”. Part of me thought “Is this just Lethal Company: The Movie?” You know what? Death by Xenomorph might be better than being a corporate wage slave.

Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.