Atmosphere? Check. Setting? Check. Jump scares? Check. Gore? Check. Ambiguous android? Check. Facehuggers? Check. Xenomorph? Check. Alien: Romulus plays all the hits that made the first two Alien movies such classics. But that doesn’t mean it has nothing new to offer, however little that may be.
Alien: Romulus begins on a Weyland-Yutani colony where orphan Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) works, with her adopted brother Andy (David Jonsson), a synthetic human. She wants to get off the planet and make it to someplace with sunlight but owes the corporation too many hours for that to happen anytime soon. Her friend Tyler (Archie Renaux) and his group — sister Kay, cousin Bjorn and Bjorn’s girlfriend Navarro — propose to scavenge a defunct Weyland-Yutani ship for cryostasis chambers so they can make it to Yvaga, the closest planet. And they need Andy, a Weyland-Yutani synthetic, to access the ship.
When they reach the ship, which is revealed to be a space station divided in two parts — Romulus and Remus — Andy, Bjorn and Tyler accidentally revive frozen facehuggers, triggering a lockdown of the station. While trying to escape they revive another synthetic on board whose chip Rain instals in Andy, which gives him an upgrade and unbeknownst to the others changes his ‘prime directive’ so he becomes loyal to only the corporation.
As they try to flee, a facehugger latches itself onto Navarro and on being activated the damaged android, Rook, tells them that the facehugger might have already implanted a seed in her. Bjorn flees with Navarro on their ship but a chestburster comes out of Navarro killing her. Bjorn dies from the acid drip of the gestating Xenomorph, which he tries to kill. And the ship crashes into the station, pushing it closer to the planetary rings of Jackson. With less than an hour left before the station crashes into the ring and a Xenomorph on the hunt, all mayhem is let loose.
Director Fede Alvarez does a great job of upgrading the look of the film but keeping the old school tech and feel. The space station, where most of the action takes place, is atmospheric and claustrophobic. There are enough jump scares and gore to make even the most staunch horror buffs happy. And the climax is something unexpected. The music, which has a lot of Alien, Aliens and Prometheus callbacks, adds to the terror.
Spaeny might not look like an action hero given her petite frame and doe-eyed demeanour but she is surprisingly effective as the Ripley-like action figure. Jonsson does well as the android and it is the chemistry between these two and the growing relationship between them that adds depth to the film. Unfortunately you don’t care about any of the other characters enough to be affected by their deaths, though the gore is rather enjoyable.
Alien: Romulus makes us realise why we loved the Alien movies in the first place, and is easily the third best movie in the much-loved sci-fi space horror franchise.
