Review of 'Alien Romulus'

Orphan Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) works in a Weyland-Yutani mining colony with her adaptive “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), a mentally damaged synthetic human rescued by her father. Having worked her contracted hours she wants to leave the colony but the company clerk instead tells her that her contracted time has doubled. Seeing no future for herself and Andy she teams up with her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) and his friends the pregnant Kay (Isabela Merced), synthetic-hating Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and his adopted sister Navarro (Aileen Wu) to travel to an abandoned orbiting ship that is due to crash into the planet's rings in 36 hours. They have learned the spaceship contains cryostasis pods that will allow the group to travel another planet and a better life. When attempting to retrieve power cells from a bank of cryostasis pods they also let a number of “face huggers” creatures free from their deep sleep. The large scorpion-like creatures attack them eventually succeeding in hugging Navaroo's face and pushing their long tail down her throat, planting their seed which a short time later rips its way out of her chest and revealing a baby alien…but not a baby for much longer, and very, very hungry. The crew now face both the facehuggers and aliens with the clock ticking down…

If this sounds quite similar to the original 1979 “Alien” film, you would be right, indeed, much of this feels like a rehash of the first film scattered through with very few new twists. It goes almost too far in trying to be like the original but I have to admit it is nice to see the attention that has been paid in this new film to getting the details right such as the use of the old-style computer graphics, the face-huggers, the chest-bursting, the alien's acid blood, and even the use of “men in suits” aliens rather than resorting to computer graphics. The film also features the return of the company-focused synthetic human Rook, Science Officer from the first film, played by an obviously digitally de-aged Ian Holm who reveals yet more treachery from Weyland-Yutani. It was nice to see that they involved the director of the original film, Ridley Scott, as Producer who I am sure helped keep the film “in cannon”.

While Cailee Spaeny's character Rain is the focus of the story it is David Jonsson's Andy that is the far more interesting character, as he undergoes transformation when implanted with Rook's chip to allow the team to circumvent the security features of the abandoned space station. It is his conflict that is the most nuanced, trying to do what is best for Rain yet having is objectives overwritten by those that favour the company. The rest of the cast, frankly, are alien fodder and it is a matter of playing “guess who is going to die next” throughout. Though a slow start eventually we get into the extended running sequences accompanied by the “something very bad is going to happen” music. Lots of scares in store here though mostly it is visceral gore.

If you want a bit of Alien horror that keeps to the original script, look no further, if you want something new and imaginative, look elsewhere. Still, quite good fun with great looking effects and imaginative action sequences.

Rating: “Really good but I have some issues”

Review Date: 2024-09-01

Directed by: Fede Alvarez

Studio: 20th Century Studios

Year: 2024

Length: 119 minutes

Genre: Science Fiction

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18412256/