2024 saw the release of sequel to Joker which alienated most of its audience primarily because it was a musical. I don’t know if the Alien series should follow suit, but I sure wish it would do something drastically different. Alas, that same year’s Alien: Romulus hews closely to the established constraints of the series, only to end in a screwy finale where it goes flying right off the rails. Nothing like being unsatisfactory initially by playing it too safe, only to go too far off the deep end in the end.
That it is directed by Fede Alvarez should have been my first warning. He wrote and directed 2013’s pointless Evil Dead reboot, which introduced nothing truly novel to the franchise and simply upped the gore quotient. But he did show promise with 2016’s Don’t Breathe, which had a particular moment which is so memorable because it was so appalling and audacious. I can’t imagine being a woman and watching that film for specifically that particular scene. Trying hard not to spoil anything here, but there is a moment in Romulus which is hideous in that same regard while somehow also being deeply ludicrous.
I’m not sure if I am grateful for it, but the CGI used for almost every special effect makes many of the most gruesome moments here literally laughable. I was especially appalled by Ian Holm’s visage and a soundalike voice being employed here for a similar sinister android of the same model, only aboard a different vessel. Weyland-Yutani, the evil company behind everything in this series, should issue a recall for that line of droids as it is appears inevitable each will become duplicitous and have a disregard for human life.
The ship this time is, for whatever reason, a space station named the Renaissance, which is the union of two allegedly separate crafts, the Remus and, you guessed it, the Romulus. I wasted a great deal of time trying to find a reason why the ship is designed that way, as it doesn’t seem to factor into the machinations of the plot. I also squandered even more time trying to reason why the symbolism of those mythological figures is being applied here, and I suspect it is foreshadowing for that deeply stupid final development. There must be some reason for it, as the pirates we follow as they raid the derelict station happen upon a terrifying mural explaining the myth. I question why anybody built such a massive and expensive facility, only to greet visitors with something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
The pirates are from the planet below, where they have been toiling away as miners. Our heroine is an orphan played by Cailee Spaeny. The friendly family droid (David Jonsson) follows and keeps tabs on her as she tries to make her way to Yvaga III, a planet beyond the control of Weyland-Yutani.
Spaeny goes to the local human resources for the company and discovers that, although she has exceeded the quota required for her to leave, that quota has just been changed. I found it interesting that, even in the future and on another world, HR is still an evil entity from which one should steer clear. Also, I get the commentary here about the sorry state of the workforce in the real world for those the age of this character, but I wondered why that targeted demographic would want to see a film where the characters are stuck in the same situation in which they find themselves. I was reminded of the characters in The Grapes of Wrath going to the movies to forget their troubles, only to watch a movie about people just like them struggling in the Dust Bowl era.
Archie Renaux is introduced as a potential love interest for Spaeny and, more importantly, the person who has a plan to pillage the secret facility floating overhead. Once he and his ragtag crew have taken the cryogenic capsules from the Renaissance-Romulus-Remus, they will make the nine-year journey to Yvaga III. If they can survive and make it to there, I think it would be darkly amusing if they arrived to find Weyland-Yutani had established a base there first.
I was amazed nobody seems to blink an eye when our heroes lift off from the mining planet in a ship which I wasn’t sure was theirs or if it had been stolen. Once they break into the space station, there’s facehuggers, fully-grown xenomorphs and all that. Oh, and Ian Holm’s less-than-helpful droid in all its subpar CGI glory.
The protagonists this time seem to fare better overall than those from previous installments on the series, and I wondered if they had somehow seen the earlier entries and took notes. More potential victims survive the initial attack of facehuggers than I think anybody could have anticipated. The first two guys to make the unfortunate discovery of these things largely use them as batting practice.
Even if the characters here could not be aware of either the previous films or the experiences of the people in those, the ghosts of the series haunt this in endless easter eggs and tributes. There’s a dunking bird on a table, like in Alien. The ending will have Spaeny initially in shots obviously referencing the second film, before running around in her underwear like Weaver in the first installment. The plot even ties back into Prometheus, as if that and its sequel are something anybody would care to remember.
The only film after the initial two which took any risks was Alien 3. That entry took huge swings and missed wildly, with a deeply unpleasant setup which infuriated me in its initial release. In light of the many derivative sequels, prequels and spin-offs (each resulting in diminishing returns), my opinion of that work has improved over time.
There is one novel element in Romulus which I did welcome and that is the station is on a crash-course with the planet’s icy rings. Hopes that the action will still take place on the station as it crashes into these space glaciers will be rewarded.
As for the performances, they are all acceptable, but only one is really fortunate enough to be applied to a character with any truly distinguishing characteristics. That would be Jonsson’s android “Andy” (ho ho), who alternates between an affable companion who tells bad jokes through a stutter and a more tightly-controlled agent operating under a secret agenda. So, despite being the most memorable character here, he is either a traitor or the type of character which would be described as a “Magical Negro” in the cinema of less enlightened times.
The only reason I didn’t hate Alien: Romulus is because it was largely not ambitious enough to be anything worthy of my hate. It came close to being worthy of it in that deeply stupid late development I keep doing a tap dance around to keep from spoiling. And yet, I’m sure this will not be the last we will see of the xenomorphs, and I’m sure each additional film will water down the source material even more. I’m thinking there’s a great many haters out there who owe an apology to Alien 3.
Dir: Fede Alvarez
Starring Cailee Spaeny, David Johnsson, Archive Renaux
Watched on Fandango At Home (as a rental, thank god)