Alien: Romulus continues the series of what happens in the series before we get introduced to the characters in Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror classic. Did we need Romulus? Not necessarily, but it does a good job at what it’s supposed to do: provide thrills, gooey monsters, entertaining special effects, and a boatload of unabashed nostalgia. On that level, it’s not bad.
Romulus picks up between the events of Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens. Cailee Spaeny stars as Rain, a young woman who works in a mining colony and has a brother (Davis Jonsson) who is an android designed to protect Rain.
When Rain encounters her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux), he offers her a chance to escape her miserable existence and join his crew to discover a derelict space station.
Rain accepts the offer to go into space, but soon enough, once they board the station, they discover the face huggers from the original Alien film who are frozen. It isn’t long before they’re mistakenly thawed out and wreak havoc.
Of course, the Xenomorphs also make an appearance, but their roles are no different from those in previous entries. That’s how I felt about a lot of Romulus.
There’s one huge surprise from a former character with some de-aging, and the climax does offer a decent amount of spectacle, but it becomes repetitive after a certain point.
Director/co-writer Fede Alvarez obviously wants to send a love letter to Scott and Cameron for their efforts, and his nods to the first two films are anything but subtle. There’s one particular line of dialogue in the climax that did get a laugh out of me.
However, that nostalgia factor is what works and doesn’t work in Romulus. Fans might appreciate it, but as for me, I wanted to go either with some daring ideas instead of a regurgitation of what worked exceedingly well before.
If you know going into Alien: Romulus that you’re gonna get the same old, same old, you’ll be satisfied enough. I’m mildly recommending it, but for the next movie, I want something that embraces Scott’s and Cameron’s films, but that’s just as trailblazing.
Grade: B
(Rated R for bloody violent content and language.)
