Ridley Scott is back with yet another installment in the Alien franchise. This time we bring ourselves firmly into the timeline of the original few films as he attempts to reinvigorate interest in the franchise. It has been 7 years since the last movie which was part of the Prometheus story that many fans panned, now Alien Romulus hopes to change that.

Space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life-form in the universe while scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station.

Review

Alien: Romulus is set 20 years after the first film, Alien, and is centered around a group of teens on a mining colony looking to escape the neverending work cycles of the Weyland-Yutani corporation. The cast comprises relatively new faces, without any big names like previous films. In some respects that allows us to focus more on the story itself and the new people we have met over trying to tie it together with other parts of the franchise.

The story itself is pretty straightforward. A small group of miners decide to hijack some cryo-pods from a derelict space station in order to fly away from the mining colony and live a life free from the corporation. But any Weyland-Yutani space station that is abandoned, was likely abandoned for good reason. They quickly learn what is happening on the station and the result is a race to survive against a perfect creature. The simple story is a highlight of the film, at least for the first 2/3 of the film. Towards the end, we meet another synthetic, a familiar face, that ends up revealing some of the worst habits of Hollywood today. Not only was it not needed to make us understand where the film ties into the franchise, it was off-putting. Also, one of the best things about the previous films was while we knew the corporation had ill intentions with their desire to capture and study the creatures, it was never really said out loud. Yet, here it’s fan-splanned to us as if we couldn’t already figure that out.

Towards the last act of the film, the director weaves together the connections to past and present, not only tying the film firmly to the first Alien timeline but also to the Prometheus timeline as well. I didn’t mind this, because whether anyone likes to admit it or not, Prometheus did expand the universe and lore. Personally, I enjoyed those films, even if you looked at them as mostly a character study of David, versus the Xenomorphs. Though, the tie-in wasn’t overbearing so it doesn’t drag down the film into too much lore territory. More like an easter egg for those who watched the other films.

Like previous installments in the franchise, our lead character Rain (Cailee Spaeny), is accompanied by a synthetic that goes by Andy (David Jonsson). Andy is damaged and Rain’s father introduced a new directive in him to do what is best for Rain and nothing more. He is teased by other kids in the mining colony, and she does her best to keep him functional. We mostly don’t care or connect with any of the cast outside of Rain and Andy. And frankly, at the end of the day, can we trust that anyone will survive in the end?

As an Alien film, Alien: Romulus does exactly what it set out to achieve and for that ranks among some of the better films in the franchise. All the scares, all the screaming, and all the alien action is there, and I am here for it. Alien: Romulus is a captivating call back to the franchise’s best storytelling.

ALIEN: ROMULUS – © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.