The DNA of the earliest Alien films is etched into this latest instalment of the franchise as emphatically as a batch of caustic xenomorph blood searing its way into the hull of a spaceship. And in some ways that’s an asset. The first two films remain the very finest of the series, and Alien: Romulus, a standalone story that takes place between the events of Alien and Aliens, wisely pays tribute to its predecessors rather than attempting to revamp or reinvent them.
But it’s also arguably a negative. It’s directed by Uruguayan genre specialist Fede Álvarez, who, as his 2013 reimagining of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead demonstrated, is a film-maker with gleefully gonzo instincts who is never happier than when he’s knee-deep in a slurry of entrails and gore. But while Alien: Romulus leans into the grislier elements of its horror heritage – at the expense of much in the way of deeper story development – it fails to assert itself as a particularly distinctive addition to the series, formally, tonally or thematically.
What distinguishes this instalment, co-written by Álvarez with his regular collaborator Rodo Sayagues, is the age of its central characters. This is the first Alien movie to feature an almost entirely young adult cast, a fact that makes up in dewy, fresh-faced photogenic alien fodder what it loses in the lived-in workplace authenticity of the first film. Cailee Spaeny, impressive in Priscilla and Civil War, continues her star-making run of eye-catching leads in the role of Rain, and Rye Lane’s David Jonsson is an intriguing, uneasy presence as Rain’s android “brother” Andy. Those around them, however, are less precisely defined. It isn’t hard to guess which faces are likely to get hugged and which torsos are about to be skewered.
There’s an immediate risk, in foregrounding characters in their late teens and early 20s, that the tone could slip into generic YA sci-fi dystopia territory. But Alien: Romulus sidesteps the overwrought, high-concept pitfalls of something like, say, the Maze Runner series by nodding to the existing Alien world-building while also carving out a satisfyingly bleak backstory for the young band of space colonists. They are second-generation inhabitants of a hellish mining community on a planet that never sees the sun – the design team goes all out on murk, rusted metal and despair in the creation of this dead-end future frontier town.
Their parents are mostly dead, lost to mining accidents, lung disease and one of the many pandemics that regularly sweep through the population. The workers are considered expendable by mine owner the Weyland-Yutani corporation, thanks to a slavery-adjacent system of indentured labour that prevents the next generation from escaping the fate of their parents. It’s no wonder the kids are so desperate to escape that they dream up a half-baked plan. Their aim is to commandeer a seemingly abandoned spaceship hovering ominously above the colony and pilot it to greener pastures – or at least a planet with daylight.
Anyone remotely familiar with the Alien franchise will guess what unpleasantness awaits on the ship. Even so, the sheer gusto and graphic detail with which Álvarez sets about slaughtering the supporting cast is thrillingly gruesome. The taut set pieces are so dynamic, the tension so stickily uncomfortable, the sound design so jarring and full of screaming metal, that you barely notice that the connective tissue between the action scenes strains to hold them together (and certainly doesn’t stand up to in-depth scrutiny). Still, the jump scares land whether or not the story logic is shaky, and the tracheal-looking tunnels coated in gooey alien tissue make for a deliciously unsettling backdrop to the action.
Ultimately, the main problem with Alien: Romulus has nothing to do with the writing or execution. It’s the decision to digitally recreate a now-deceased actor to restore a character from the original Alien. It’s a queasily misguided choice, presumably intended to cement further the film’s links to the original picture, but which instead feels ghoulish, exploitative, disrespectful and unnecessary.
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