ALIEN: ROMULUS (2024)
New in theaters from 20th Century Studios!
Directed by Fede Alvarez.
Written by Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/x0XDEhP4MQs

Cailee Spaeny plays Rain, an orphan who struggles to earn enough work points to leave the mining planet she resides in and move to another planet where she can actually see the sun. When her trip off planet is declined, Rain is desperate and with her synthezoid companion, Andy (David Jonsson), accepts an invitation from her friends to leave the planet on their own and sneak into an orbiting science station called Romulus – like the name of the movie – to retrieve cryo-units that will take them to their sunny destination. Little do their know, the abandoned space station isn’t empty. It’s filled with a fresh crop of facehuggers, just waiting to hug some faces.

Functioning as a sequel to the original ALIEN, ALIEN ROMULUS is a solid entry in the franchise. It may be my third most favorite after, of course, the first and second one. Still, ALIEN: ROMULUS is at its weakest when it plays as a greatest hits version of the franchise. There are moments when iconic lines are repeated from the first two ALIEN films that fell flat and made me feel somewhat embarrassed for the film. While I didn’t mind the film borrowing the basic story structure of the first film, the callbacks in the script were much more difficult to swallow.

The story structure is basically the same as ALIENS—get in and get out of a space station before it blows up and these space millennials would’ve gotten away with it too if not for those pesky xenomorphs. Yes, these are all youngsters taking on the Aliens and what this film is missing is that grungy, blue collar trucker feel of the cast of ALIEN. Here they have shaggy hair and good teeth. Like they all just jumped out of a Banana Republic catalog. The lack of variety in age of the cast is going to turn off some, but for the most part, the intense pace and some key performances made me turn a blind eye to it.

The cast is serviceable with the standout being David Jonsson as the out of date, yet loyal synthetic human. There’s such a hound dog sadness in his droopy eyes that makes you immediately think he’s suffered ages of torment. He bares the brunt of all of the abuse as well, as others in this group have issues with synthezoids. Andy’s loyalty to Rain is the heart of the movie.

And in order to be scared you have to care about the characters in peril. Thankfully, lead Cailee Spaeny works as the spunky Rain. She lacks the gravitas of Sigourney Weaver, but despite the fact that she’s a dinky little lass, she sells the toughness as the film never makes her do any kind of superhero acts and keep all of her action within the limits of her size. The main theme of ROMULUS is very similar to that of ALIENS, that being losing a loved one. In order for this mission to be accomplished, Rain must make a sacrifice and is willing to do so, but it’s no easy decision. The film makes it a choice whether to leave someone behind rather than someone dealing with the regret and remorse of leaving a loved one that was prevalent in Ripley’s ALIENS arc. In that movie, Ripley was trying to redeem herself. In ROMULUS, Rain must make a decision. It’s a slight variation on the theme, but enough of a change to make ROMULUS thematically different.

What impressed me most about ALIEN: ROMULUS was that it did harken back to the franchise’s horror roots. While the in and out story structure is all ALIENS, there is much more of an attention to the body horror and conventional haunted house atmosphere with the maze-like, abandoned space station. We see a few new tricks up the xenomorphs sleeves in terms of how resilient they are. And we also get some more clues into Weyland Yutani’s interest in the alien which adds to the conspiracy and mystery angles of the franchise. Alvarez tosses in some intense scenes of the alien pursuit through the tunnels and some jump scares that actually work. Nothing as horrifying as the jump scare in the tunnel with Tom Skerritt in Alien, but still I shot back into my chair a time or two in this one. One of the more interesting turns is that there is more of an attention to the xenomorphs in the various phases of development with facehuggers skuttering around the ship after folks like creepy spiders and hibernation cocoons that retain the icky vaginal shapes seen in Geiger’s original designs.

Sure, taking the story forward and possibly doing something new with the franchise would be cool. And maybe we will get that with the Alien TV series coming next year from Noah Hawley. Still this is a quality installment in the series. It doesn’t have stupid scientists taking their protective masks off in a foreign environment or someone stapling a Cesarian operation shut and then running, jumping and fighting aliens for another hour. So at least it doesn’t have the head slapping logic from Scott’s prequels. Much like his EVIL DEAD remake, Alvarez doesn’t reinvent the wheel with ALIEN ROMULUS. He just updates it with some solid, serious scares, a fast pace, and a modern edge. I had a good time with it. It looks and sounds great. The central theme got me invested and I jumped a few times. Plus the practical effects were downright amazing to behold. What more do you want from an Alien movie?

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Music & Arrangement by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy https://youtu.be/PDySbxQgZMg
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