Alien Romulus (2024)  

Review: written September 2024

My hopes and expectations were mixed when I heard about this sequel. Above all, I just didn’t want them to mess it up. I loved the simplicity and tension of the first, the adrenaline and endlessly quotable performances and world building from the second, always thought Alien 3 was flawed but underappreciated, and loved the beauty and atmosphere of the later Ridley Scott movies, despite their overindulgence in unnecessary and unsatisfying origin explanations. I wanted a back to basics Alien movie – and hey, that’s exactly what I got. It’s definitely aiming for that simple survival story, aesthetic, but with more modern effects. Don’t worry though – they still feel tactile, slimy and grimy.

It’s both sequel and prequel, following on from the first Alien and set before Aliens. Cailee Spaeny plays Rain, who is a blue collar worker on a Weyland-Yutani colony. When her contract is forcibly extended, she and her android (who she treats as a sibling), join forces with her ex boyfriend and his team. They have found a way off the planet – a derelict space station with valuable technology not yet stripped. When they reach the spacecraft however, it is clear that something (and we all know what) has gone horribly wrong, and their race to escape soon becomes a race to survive.

Director Fede Alvarez is to be applauded for wringing tension and effective set pieces from a well worn franchise, and evoking the atmosphere of the franchise at its best, even if as a whole the movie does not reach those heights. For fans, there are innumerable references, from an unexpected legacy character reference, to various homages and direct lifts from the previous movies – pretty much all of them are referenced in some form or another and fans will have fun recognising lines and moments. Unfortunately some of the callouts later in the movie mean we head into ideas representing the nadir of the franchise as well as its highs, and the final act is not as satisfying as the build-up. The ticking clock to their escape is created by the spacecrafts deteriorating orbit as it is drawn towards the planets ice rings – an effective plot line with terrific effects, but it’s the twist on the alien life cycle which I found an unfortunate choice, in bringing back an idea they should perhaps have left dead.

So, getting what I wished for turned out to be a mixed blessing. I got the callouts of favourite bits, the tension, the sliminess and in its lead, a decent Ripley-like character with her own promising nuances. The rest of the cast make less of a mark however, and the sum total of the movie left me realising that seeing all the bits I wanted to see wasn’t enough to create a classic. To keep the franchise alive may mean the next movie, if there is one, might need to create more of its own path.

Fun, respectful addition to the franchise then – and probably the best since the first two, but it falls quite some way behind them in terms of classic status.