A Reel Review - ALIEN: ROMULUS

ALIEN: ROMULUS is the seventh film in its franchise, which began with the genre-breaking, closed-quarters horror flick ALIEN (1979), and continued with the action-packed sequel ALIENS (1986). Those were the glory days, because since then, it’s been an endless train wreck of sequels, prequels, and spin-offs…with bad movies, messy mythologies, and what-were-they-thinking stories. This time around, the franchise tries something new: the Interquel. 

 

Set 20 years after the events of ALIEN, and 17 years before the events of ALIENS, Rain (Cailee Spaeny), and her android Andy (David Jonsson), are recruited by their friends (Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu), to raid an abandoned space station to steal cryo-pods…which will enable them to escape to a better life. Once aboard, they are hunted and attacked by deadly…aliens. 

 

Directed by Fede Alvarez, ROMULUS goes back to the roots of what made ALIEN and ALIENS so great. Gone are the attempts at building mythologies or exploring god-concepts or humanity’s place in the universe, and back are the basic building blocks of closed-quarters horror, body-horror, gut-wrenching tension, and feelings of isolation and helplessness. Once the crew is aboard, they awaken the famed facehuggers which leads to the equally famed xenomorphs. The clock is ticking as the station is losing its orbit…and the race is on to survive the fall and being torn apart or cocooned. 

 

Showing no shame, ROMULUS borrows extensively from previous ALIEN films, recreating scenes, situations, and lines of dialogue. It’s almost like a greatest-hits package, but it does enough that it feels like its own thing. Director Fede Alvarez puts together some amazing set pieces, and with a combo of practical and CGI effects, we see the xenomorphs and the facehuggers in a whole new light; they are more terrifying than ever. 

 

Acting is excellent. Cailee Spaeny carries the film very well. David Jonsson is tremendous as the standard-issue android, who goes through his own personality changes in surprising ways. And speaking of surprises, an extended cameo by a franchise legacy character is handled very well and is a shocker. 

 

ROMULUS delivers everything that fans have been demanding from the franchise for many years, going back to basics and ticking the boxes on all the good stuff. The recycling of old moments could be considered lazy, but it does enough to make it feel fresh. As an interquel, it fits nicely between ALIEN and ALIENS, and even cleans up the mess that was left by the goddamn prequel movies. ROMULUS returns the franchise to its glory days. 

 

BOTTOM LINE: See it