Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson in Alien: Romulus.Murray Close/20th Century Studios
- Alien: Romulus
- Directed by Fede Álvarez
- Written by Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues
- Starring Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson and Archie Renaux
- Classification 14A; 119 minutes
- Opens in theatres Aug. 16
By now, moviegoers are intimately, disgustingly familiar with the life cycle of xenomorphs, those pesky extraterrestrials whose bloodlust rests at the heart of the Alien franchise. From face-hugger to chest-buster to phallic-domed beast, the H.R. Giger-designed monsters have secured a unique place in our collective nightmares – they are emotionless killing machines whose various forms evoke something sinister, sexual, sickening. But just as the xenomorphs have their own evolutionary code, so, too, do Alien movies.
They start off with the same basic premise – foolish, often greedy humans trespass into places they are not meant to go – and then grow to conform to the varied artistic sensibilities of their respective filmmakers.
Ridley Scott went full-on haunted-house horror with his original 1979 film, then – as the director spent decades playing with and twisting grand-scale historical tales – transitioned into god-king mythologizing with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. James Cameron, ever the gung-ho warrior, turned his sequel into a war epic. David Fincher internalized the existential terror with his intimate and dread-laden prison tale. And Jean-Pierre Jeunet, well, his entry was extremely French.
Archie Renaux and Cailee Spaeny in Alien: Romulus.20th Century Studios/20th Century Studios
So what does Fede Álvarez bring to the blood-splattered surgical table with Alien: Romulus? On paper, the filmmaker behind 2013′s reboot of Evil Dead would be voted the Alien alumnus most likely to make moviegoers repeatedly vomit. And, to be sure, Álvarez eventually gets there, with the third act of Romulus impressively nauseating. But otherwise, the filmmaker isn’t developing this cinematic universe so much as he is stunting its growth. And along the way, Álvarez makes one error so egregious that he just about makes you want to root for the xenomorphs to gobble this franchise whole before acid-spitting it back out.
There is promise in the opening of Romulus, which plays like the best kind of homage – reverential, but not redundant – to Scott’s first film. Nearly silent save for a skin-crawling score, and stylized with on-screen credits whose retro font recalls the future that might have been imagined back in 1979, the movie’s first few minutes set the story and timeline up with gusto.
A xenomorph in Alien: Romulus.20th Century Studios/20th Century Studios
It is a few years after the events of the original film, and scientists working for the evil megacorporation Weyland-Yutani are picking apart the pieces of the Nostromo spaceship, which housed Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley and co-workers. The new folks find something, and, hey, wouldn’t you know, it’s a big ol’ bucket of bad news.
Flash forward a bit, and we’re on a smoke-choked mining colony run by Weyland-Yutani, where life is miserable for the twentysomething Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), who is actually a glitchy android designed by Rain’s late father. After realizing that she is never going to escape her life as a glorified company slave, Rain reluctantly joins a motley crew of wannabe thieves who set out to rob a derelict space station called Romulus.
The archetypes are all here: Tyler (Archie Renaux) is the cocky but kind leader; Kay (Isabela Merced) is Tyler’s younger sister of no real distinguishing characteristics; Bjorn (Spike Fearn) is the jerk with a chip on his shoulder; and Navarro (Aileen Wu) is the diverse member of the crew whose fate may or may not conform to a popular horror-movie trope.
After reaching their destination, things go sideways quickly, and it’s not long before faces are aggressively hugged, chests are burst and skin is melted beyond the bone. The trouble is not that Álvarez knows all the beats that he needs to play, but that he has no interest in going beyond them.
The anti-capitalistic themes of Scott’s original film are here in the deviant, mostly faceless tactics of Weyland-Yutani. Ditto the war games of Cameron’s sequel, and the isolationist dread of Fincher’s work. Heck, Álvarez even borrows – okay, shamelessly steals – the most wackadoo element of Jeunet’s entry, right down to the final battle.
Álvarez’s professionalism and few new tricks keep the story from crashing down to Earth, including a zero-gravity sequence in which our heroes must float around the xenomorphs’ corrosive blood, as if engaging in an especially dangerous version of synchronized swimming. Spaeny and Jonsson are also wonderful, with the latter especially impressive as he reveals new layers of vulnerability not previously showcased in the 2023 romcom Rye Lane and HBO’s Industry.
Yet the film also steps over a glaring and infuriating red line early on thanks to a plot development that I will not spoil, for fear of pulling a Prometheus of my own and angering the (studio) gods.
Give the film a few days’ worth of new-release discourse, and the topic will surely come up in detail – and audiences will certainly know it when they see it. But for now, it is safe to say that Álvarez and his co-writer Rodo Sayagues have exploited certain technological advancements that should provoke all manner of justifiably righteous moviegoer anger.
In a way, the pair are not pioneering anything – they’re as guilty as colleagues Gareth Edwards, Jason Reitman, and even my beloved Sopranos mastermind David Chase. But the extent and purpose of this particular VFX-enabled trick in Romulus can only be judged by franchise fans as unnecessary, egregious and stomach-churning. And not in that good kind of xenomorph-eviscerating kind of way. It is enough to make you scream.