“Alien: Romulus” jumpstarts the franchise with mayhem and delight

I went into Alien: Romulus with higher expectations for a new Alien movie for the first time in a long time, mostly because I wanted to experience something other than the disappointment I felt from the last movies directed by Ridley Scott, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Fede Alvarez’ interest and experience with suspense and horror gave me hope that this could be a return to the roots of the franchise: scifi-horror at its finest.

Seeing the trailers bolstered my expectations, and all that was left was the waiting. I saw an IMAX showing, and left the theater satisfied.

Alien: Romulus takes us back in time, to what seems to be after Alien and the destruction of the Nostromo, but before the Marines are sent to LV-426 in Aliens. We see a salvage and recovery operation to retrieve what a Weyland Yutani science team believes to be a deceased xenomorph, and dedicates a station to studying what they have.

We know from experience things won’t end well there, which leads to the anticpation for what happens next.

Next we are introduced to a pod of friends, stuck on the still-being-terraformed planet Jackson’s Star, where an eager young woman, Rain, is heading to the offices to exchange her work record for the transport off planet she was promised at the end of her work contract. Unfortunately she learns that the company has “extended” her contract because the costs of the transport she wants have gone up, and instead of being reassigned back to an agricultural sector, she learns she’s being sent to the dust mines… which is all but a death sentence.

The introduction of her brother Andy, who we learn is a damaged synthetic, an older nearly forgotten model, is a welcome surprise. We’ve never seen a cognitively damaged but still functional synthetic, and Rain’s concern for the “brother” her deceased father recovered from the scrap heap and restored to serve her is a contrast to how many of the other people on Jackson’s Star — including Rain’s friends — treat him.

The crew of the Corbelan, a mid-sizes cargo transport ship, consists of Navarro, a tech savvy pilot, Tyler, ostensibly the leader of the group and Rain’s ex, Kay and Bjorn. Tyler approaches Rain with a proposition: steal some equipment they believe is on a derelict ship they’ve recently found in orbit, and use it to escape to the planet Yvaga.

The catch is, they know the ship’s computers are restricted Weyland Yutani access, and hope to get Rain to agree to use Andy so he can maneuver them around the derelict ship and help retrieve the cryo systems they need to make the 9-year trip. Rain and Andy join the illicit expedition.

Once on board the derelict, Rain and Tyler realize that it’s not a ship, but a station, and Navarro informs them that it’s unstable, stuck in a decaying orbit that will crash it into Jackson’s Star’s rings in 36 hours. Having to move around the many bodies and unknown (to them) objects in the hallways in the lab adds to their confusion about what was going on before the station was partially destroyed.

Awakened facehuggers attack the group, and mayhem ensues. Surprising developments about the xenomorph are learned from a nearly-destroyed synthetic they find in the lab… a doppleganger for Ash, named Rook. Rook tells them about the program, and once Rain has used a data disc from Rook to restore function to a severely damaged Andy, Rook uses Andy’s enhanced functions and access to make him realize he has a new directive, rather than his previous one to do what’s best for Rain.

Once Andy has conflicting directives to serve Rain and serve the Company, more conflicts arise once the after effects of a facehugger successfully implants Navarro, and Rook convinces Tyler and Rain to retrieve a compound from the lab and ensures that they take it planetside to the company offices. The compound is important beyond measure, as it shows it can heal damaged organic life forms,

More mayhem ensues, including a twist revolving around a secret pregnancy, a desperate use of the compound, and what appears to the first attempt at what Rook hinted at what their project was designed to accomplish.

Seeing the abundance of practical effects brings back the original gritty feel from the first two films, and director Fede Alvarez truly knows how to craft a tense atmosphere… most of them were in the perfect spots, and they cranked up the tension and anticipation of the incoming jump scares. I wish we could have seen more of the hive, and where in the lab it was constructed, and maybe some hints about where the facehuggers were harvested from, since we know they were not on the Nostromo.

The biggest nitpicks I have are for some of the characters. Their names are mentioned once early on, and too fast. Two of them have their names mentioned one other time, but other than Rain, Andy, and Tyler, I did not know their names; even if they didn’t last long on screen, I should have known who they were.

The battles involving the first hatched xenomorph, and the accidental hybrid, become muddled because of attempts to give them “purpose” in their attacks, instead of just letting them be what they are: relentless predators just clearing the decks. There is no sign of a queen to give them directions, so this feels like an oversight.

The end sequence is also confusing. We know from several mentions that Yvaga, the new planet Rain wants to escape to, doesn’t allow synthetics, yet she says she’ll “fix it”. They head off, guiding the Corbelan towards Yvaga while they go into cryosleep, carrying along with them the compound that Rook wanted so desperately to save from the wreck for The Company. So will introducing the compound to company officials on Yvaga — a successfully terraformed and thriving planet — be the next chapter of xenomorph infestation we’ll see?

Since in the Alien timeline, this movie takes place well after Alien, but also well before Aliens, it opens the door to ask “was LV-426 the only Earth colony planet the only place where the xenomorph had spread to?”, and Yvaga could be the answer to that.

If future chapters are set on different locales in the time frame around Aliens, and they choose to stick with the action-horror framework rather than the philosophical-existential one, the next movie could also be as much fun as this one.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Website: https://www.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/alien-romulus

While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

Starring: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu
Directed by: Fede Alvarez
Written by: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues
Based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett