Taking my own name in vain.
18 August 2024
I’m a big fan of the Alien franchise, with my absolute favourite being Aliens, so much so I backed the excellent documentary, Aliens: Expanded. It’s a four-hour long documentary filled with some really interesting stories, anecdotes and it was a fascinating watch. If you’re a fan, it’s worth the purchase. Anyway, when I heard that a new Alien movie was on the way I was both happy and apprehensive. Much like the Predator franchise, recent installments had been lacklustre, however, the existance of Prey filled me with a little bit of hope that, in the right hands, we might get a decent movie. So knowing that director Fede Álvarez’s history being in horror movies, those feelings of hope increased and, after watching the movie this past week, I’m glad to report that we finally have a movie that adds to the franchise rather than detracts.
Set between the events of Alien and Aliens, Alien: Romulus follows Rain and her group of friends ill-fated expedition to scavenge a recently discovered station in orbit of the world they’re living. Her need is desperate as Weyland-Yutani continue to increase her quota requirements to leave and the planet she’s on is, well, pretty awful. Here we see another one of Weyland-Yutani’s attempts at “building better worlds” and whilst, on the planet’s surface at least, things are going better than Hadley’s Hope (LV-426) it’s not a picnic either. There’s a rampant new disease, work deaths aplenty and they’re on a planet that never sees their system’s sun. So when an opportunity presents itself to leave the system for good, it’s hard to blame Rain and her friends decision to get the heck out of there.
Unfortunately, the station harbours a dark secret and what ensues, whilst very safe in terms of its narrative and arc, is an action packed romp with some fun callbacks to other movies in the franchise. Not all of them hit and more than one is a bit cringy, but it doesn’t quite go full fan-service and tells its own story in the confines of the universe it’s set in. It’s what Alien: Resurrection should have done, there was no need to bring Ripley back after her three-movie arc had completed and the existence of the Xenomorphs on the USM Auriga could’ve been explained in multiple different ways. In fact, Alien: Romulus does this rather neatly even if I felt it was a bit of a stretch.
Ultimately some of the characters you’re introduced to are a little thin but I’m sure you can figure out why that might be. The story of Alien: Romulus circles around Rain and brother Andy and spends precious little time with the rest of the cast. That’s not to say we know nothing about them or their own motivations, it’s just that the movie uses Rain to drive the movie forward much like Ripley did. I’m not wholly against this and is very typical of the horror genre. It keeps the story tight and prevents things getting too bogged down with exposition. I also felt that a particularly characters presence, due to how, was a little jarring, equally though it made sense given when this movie is set within the timeline.
Alien: Romulus is by far the best entry to the franchise since Aliens. Some have been decent (Alien 3) whilst others have been woeful (Alien: Resurrection & Prometheus). It shows that you can have the classic Xenomorph without having drag Ripley in somehow. Sure, she’s central to the original movies, but there’s lots of lore outside of her story to provide adequate settings for other movies. Alien: Romulus ties itself smartly to the timeline but remains able to tell its own story much like Alien: Isolation did albeit as a video game. I’m hoping that this movie is a success and that we can, hopefully, have more Alien movies that can tell a decent story but provide good scares and provide interesting twists and turns.
5 facehuggers out of 5