- Directed by: Fede Alvarez.
- Released: 2024.
ALIEN Romulus is a return to the aesthetics of last century’s ALIEN (1979) and ALIENS (1986). It is heavily influenced by both movies that chronologically bracket it. Sitting between both of these movies, this latest installment in the long running ALIEN series could almost be considered a ‘Greatest Hits’ montage given a makeover. A remix, of sorts. With this in mind, does ALIEN Romulus tumble into the trap of just giving fans what they crave just to fall flat due to catering to those who just want more of the same thing? Or does this synthesis of well established themes, art and design go beyond simply being a glorified fan film and lend itself to a new and different beast, one with its own identity to make it worth embracing?
While early fan service promotional material was geared to seeking appeasement, thankfully ALIEN Romulus is much more than a fresh retread of old familiar themes and recycled art direction. This is a movie that sets out on well known territory but migrates into new spaces to assert its own identity within the series. It also means it is intimately connected to the original 1979 movie with critical plot points propelling the narrative forward to send the audience into unexplored territory. As a belated extension of the original movie, ALIEN Romulus is as equally deserving as a sequel as Cameron’s later movie, ALIENS within the framework of a piece of cinema made in 2024.
The setting is familiar enough, to wit: a small group of intrepid young adults decide to advance their fortunes by invading someone else’s property. Once inside, the trespassers find themselves being hunted by a relentless blind antagonist to discover the disturbing fate of their predecessors. Director Alvarez’ has effectively repurposed this fundamental premise from his earlier movie, ‘Don’t Breath’ and set it in deep space.
This latest foreboding space adventure features a band of opportunistic young adults setting out to strip valuable assets from within the confined quarters of an abandoned bio-engineering research station in decaying orbit. Propelled by the concerns of contractual servitude and otherwise dreary lives, they seek to escape their home world, the Weyland Yutani colony of Jackson’s Star. ALIEN Romulus’ group of disenchanted young colonials decide to make their way to the Renaissance station, a dark and abandoned orbital platform reminiscent of ALIEN Isolation’s Sevastopol station, complete with a sinister mystery at its heart. Boarding the Renaissance station the band of trespassers discover their flight tickets include chaos and shockingly grisly points of interest not noted as part of their itinerary. Needless to say, things do not go well for them.
Federez’ movie solidly embraces the ‘haunted house in space’ theme with much conviction, appropriate sense of dread and expected gory death scenes. Once on board the Renaissance space station, events take a harrowing turn for our young unauthorised salvage team that couldn’t be further from the drab and humdrum existence of day to day colonial life on the colony world below. Thoughts of escaping to a better life are quickly relinquished to the more pressing act of escaping with their lives.
Rain Carradine, played by Cailee Spaeny, grows into her Ripley-esque role. This is a role as obligatory and overextended in these movies as much as the overly worn tradition of applying monikers to spacecraft referencing the works of Joseph Conrad’s novels. It’s a little tired, tedious and lacking in creativity but it’s reliably consistent and well done here. Cailee is engaging and delivers a smart and fantastic performance. Also kicking a great performance into high gear is David Jonsson’s portrayal of Rain’s synthetic humanoid sibling, Andy, a ‘ro-bro’ of sorts. This android brother role is both complex and rewarding, demonstrating one of the great concerns about advanced Artificial Intelligence in regards to “Who is the Master, now”? Other cast members also deliver fine efforts to meld the character’s group dynamics and relationships into a credible cohesive whole. There are no bad performances here, just some very, very surprising ones.
The creatures are, of course, the real stars of the show. The Alien’s lifecycle is once again prominently represented to its fullest to which most audiences are already well acquainted. Some additional embellishments have crept in once again as the new director feels the need to provide such details to renew it within the confines of iterations of what we have already been exposed to many times previously. The new adult XX121 creatures are great, though. They hide in darkness, hunt their prey and are genuinely threatening when they do fully reveal themselves. A wildly new creature type also asserts itself towards the end of ALIEN Romulus adding a much welcome fresh and invigorating take on a well trodden finale that’s as much cliche in these movies as you’d care to think about. Some people will love it. Others will outright despise it.
As a complete package ALIEN Romulus delivers on most points. Despite this fact it is often top heavy with its priority of fan service appeasement. It ranges from unsubtle art direction emulating earlier movies, paints the delicate art of successfully returning previous characters to the fore, various Easter Eggs peppered throughout and the blatantly eye rolling recycling of well known dialogue from previous movies. The movie’s obsession with seeking approval from fans is painted wide across the canvas; and this one of the movie’s few drawbacks as lore elements are unsubtle and shoved in your face. This movie thankfully expands on these homages and reaches a point where it asserts its own identity. It’s a balancing act that segues flawlessly through the movie’s running time of two hours, giving ALIEN Romulus a much needed opportunity to become a valuable experience without slavishly relying too greatly on being a tired retelling of what we’ve seen before.
It’s clear Ridley Scott has had significant influence on Fede Alvarez and this movie wasn’t going to be made without Scott’s input and approval, that’s also clear. It’s a series entry consolidating everything we’ve seen in previous ALIEN movies, front loaded with a reaffirmation all previous movies are regarded as canon by its studio owner, 20th Century Studios. Clearly, nothing is being retconned here as this strong entry embraces and expands upon fundamental aspects of all those movies, including the divisive entries in the series ALIEN Resurrection, PROMETHEUS and ALIEN Covenant. Alvarez has effectively directed a story experience worthy of the ALIEN name and it’s here to stay.
As for ‘fans’ that will balk at this title because they didn’t get what they want? …or got too much recycled content? Scott does not care. I don’t think Alvarez cares, either. Such fans are the ones missing out on the necessity of accepting the ALIEN series must evolve beyond simple minded comic book and video game content that much of popular cinema has regrettably devolved into. I’d be happy to see more ALIEN movies directed by Alvarez. An ALIEN television series by Noah Hawley is currently in development to be released next year, it appears 20th Century Studios are also confident the ALIEN series has a long and potentially grand life ahead.
Finally, it is also important to note ALIEN Romulus does more than set about to be a blood soaked comic book action movie out to appease desperate fans wanting to judge its approval. This is a movie that stands as an independent story with a narrative completely disassociated from previous movies. It still manages to consolidate and recognise disparate parts of all previous entries along with other Expanded Universe media in the series, including ALIEN comics that are very popular in the ALIEN fan community. A lot of ALIEN Romulus is substantially familiar. Thankfully, it’s also an unexpectedly worthy addition to the series, carrying along with it the ingenuity, creativity and terror established more than four decades ago.
On one hand you may choose to consider ALIEN Romulus as a pedestrian paint-by-numbers fan approval seeking episode of wannabe Ripley vs face grabbing space spiders and hostile biomechanical crocodiles. On the other hand, it ultimately accelerates to full speed as a hybrid horror action movie to become a wild ride you won’t forget soon.
SCORE: 7/10
A familiar haunted house with some neat renovations and some new rooms to play in.
