Alien: Romulus (2024)

<<

Alien Reviews

We return to deep space, where no one can hear you scream, with the first overlapping 'Alien' movie, which takes place between the events of 'Alien' and 'Aliens'. Like it is with most movies in the franchise (save for the first two), it's yet another movie I can't help but feel lukewarm about. The problem there is that I've found 'Aliens' (and arguably its predecessor) have simply set the bar too high. I'd be hard-pressed to say anything will ever be as awesome as 'Aliens' in this franchise, even when it comes to future possibilities.

I've quite honestly enjoyed each and every movie since 'Aliens' in their own individual ways; even 'Alien 3' and 'Resurrection', which I now find to be intriguing parts of their respective director's/writer's (David Fincher/Joss Whedon) careers. I like them like any horror franchise, meaning that despite how awful some of it may be, I can't help but have fun with it and, hey, let's face it, cheer on the villain just a little bit, because that's kinda what we came to see. The fun thing about the 'Alien' franchise is that there are two key villains; the Xenomorphs themselves, and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation who continue to show their dark side.

After doing a bit of homework, I've found that this takes place a couple of decades after the events of the first film, in 2142. The USCSS Nostromo, destroyed at the end of 'Alien', floats in pieces through space. A Weyland-Yutani probe checks things out, and gathers a large cocoon which is revealed to contain the Xenomorph we all thought must have died in space after Ripley blew it out of an airlock. As one can imagine, the company's greed eventually backfires on them and, spoiler alert, but we never see any of the chaos happen.

Soon enough we meet Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) and her adoptive brother, a glitchy android named Andy (David Jonsson); members of the mining colony, Jackson's Star on LV-410. After Rain's work contract is extended, she begins to lose hope of ever getting off such a terrible rock, especially after having lost her parents in the mines. That is until her ex-boyfriend, Tyler (Archie Renaux) approaches her with a plan to raid a seemingly abandoned spacecraft for its functioning cryostasis chambers, which should, in theory, give them enough time to travel from this planet to the next safest, habitable place.

Joining them are Tyler's sister, Kay (Isabela Merced), their cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Bjorn's adoptive sister, Navarro (Aileen Wu), and together, they manage to make it off planet and head straight towards the Weyland-Yutani ship mentioned earlier; by now, full of creepy-crawly facehuggers and meat-hungry Xenomorphs, turning the heist of a few cryotubes into a survival mission. It pretty much goes through the motions of the collective crew finding themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and trying like to escape with their lives.

All in all, the film is pretty good. It does feel to some degree like things are kinda back to normal when it comes to this franchise, and they even roll out a new idea or two here, like the alien cocoon, and another attempt at a baby alien that looks far, far more disturbing here than it did in 'Resurrection', which was a feat hard to accomplish, but they pulled it off. I even appreciate how it brings things together, also referencing 'Prometheus'. All in all, the film is pretty solid, even for a franchise film this far down the line.

The downfall here, however, is that it falls victim to some fan service that can only be seen as either cheesy or unnecessary. We get familiar faces coming back for no real reason, a repeat of a famous line from the franchise, and even scenes that feel very cut-and-paste from previous films. That said, however, I would say that the original ideas (and I'm only half-way counting something brought over from 'Resurrection' as a concept done differently) counterbalance the fan service stuff decently, and it's not like it's being an 'Episode VII' about things. Again though, 'Aliens' just has that bar set too high.

3/5

---