TW Reviews Alien: Romulus: Spoilers

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

I’vr seen a lot of hype telling everyone that this is the best Alien movie since the James Cameron Aliens. I’ve also seen claims that you need to see this movie before someone spoils the shocking ending. Let me tell you that it is not the best Alien movie and it is certainly not a shock ending. The only shock is that you paid money to see it. They’re just ploys to get you to part with your cash before everyone tells you it is rubbish. Wait for Netflix.

Now, starting off I felt a lot of hope. From the opening scenes it is very much set in the Alien universe as the Weyland corporation continues to expand. I felt like Ripley or some familiar face was going to walk round a corner any moment despite it being set 20 years after the original movie. We see the wreck of the Nostromo being scoured by Weyland. Weyland as we know are bad people and here we see them working generation after generation to death on the mining colony of Jackson’s Star. When a miner such as lead character Rain Carradine and adoptive brother Andy who seems to be autistic, have worked long enough to qualify for transfer and freedom to the colony Yvaga 3. the company changes the rules trapping them in another contract. The people here die form lung diseases and all in the name of Weyland.

Andy we discover is in fact a damaged synthetic programmed by Rain’s father to keep her safe after he died. He has a tendency to do terrible dad jokes but Rain is protective of him. Initial rumblings about this was that it was going to be a teenagers in space versus xenomorphs but thankfully that is not the case.

We do have a selection of young people who are all trapped into working there but Tyler, his pregnant sister Kay, cousin Bjorn, and Bjorn’s girlfriend Navarro are all faceless and one dimensional. They might as well have bullseyes on their chests. Only Rain and Andy have a depth to them that is reminiscent of Sarah Connor and the Terminator in Genisys.

They have detected a ship in orbit that seems to have been abandoned. it contains stasis pods that will allow them all to escape and go to Yvaga. But they have to move fast as the ship is heading towards the rings of the planet and in 36 hours it will be destroyed.

So far so good but it all heads down hill from here. They discover it is not a ship but a research station where Weyland have been keeping something nasty that is ready to pop. Don’t get me wrong. There are moments which we haven’t seen before except maybe in the comic strips but as usual they have been seen in the trailer spoiling the surprise.

The scene where the facehuggers swim under water to hunt their prey is unnerving and those shots of them being launched out of the water are freaky. We have all been in the sea or a lake where we think something has brushed against our legs beneath the surface. So tapping into a collective fear works. Seeing the facehuggers work in unison to force open doors and spill en masse into a corridor is terrifying but we saw it in the trailer. We discover that you can walk through a room full of facehuggers without alerting them which is new. Navarro (Aileen Wu) is the first victim of the facehuggers and I knew that would happen. I also knew Kay’s pregnancy would be an important plot point down the line. Seeing Navarro’s chest explode via a portable X ray was unnerving. Rain and Andy floating in a sea of acid blood was well done. Poor Bjorn’s acid death is also something new and horrible. Overall the movie is beautifully shot and totally wants to respect what has come before. But respect does not mean shoehorning in references just to please fans. More on that later.

Without question it is the appearance of a synthetic ripped in half ala Bishop at the end of Aliens and in Alien 3. For a moment you hope it is another Bishop but it is much better than that. The young people hook the remains of the synthetic up so they can find out what is going on here and what they are up against. This synthetic calls himself Rook but he wears the face of murderous Ash from the original.

Ian Holm is back as the monster synthetic thanks to CGI and he is as villainous as his first appearance as the company directive takes priority over the lives of anyone that gets in the way. They switch Andy’s control chip with the synthetics ridding him of his former child personality and making him the tool of Rook for a time.

We learn we are watching a direct sequel to the original movie. The body of the xenomorph Ripley blew out the airlock was found and brought to this station for research. To this end Rook has decided to make humans the ultimate lifeform by using and upgrading the black goo from Prometheus. He is keen for the fluid to be kept safe which he entrusts Andy with and is very keen for any of them to inject themselves under the pretence that their wounds would heal and beat the aliens. Rain’s instincts are correct and stops Kay from taking it. This station is filled with aliens but due to Bjorn’s actions they are on an accelerated collision course with the rings.

In the original movie I cared for the characters and mourned each death but here I don’t and I cannot pinpoint why. Is it enough that they are trying to escape a tyrannical company working them to death reason to connect? No, Rain and Andy are the ones we empathise with for sure.

You can see the references but to rehash a reference twice is dumb. The photo of Ripley face to face with the alien from Alien 3 has been done in Alien Vs Predator requiem with the waitress. So why repeat it? Even the first Alien vs Predator is referenced as Rook hails his fluid as the cure the terminally ill Weyland always wanted. Another stupid decision was to have Andy utter the iconic Aliens line, “Get away from her you bitch!”

It is delivered in a fashion that is so flat that I’m sure Sigourney Weaver herself shook her head in disappointment safe in the knowledge she will always own those words. It was great to hear the pulse rifles again though in a weak echo of the Ripley and Hicks scene where he tries to teach her how to use it. And this is what I mean about being shoehorning stuff in. Who are you satisfying? Your film maker instincts or fans? Isn’t the task of a film maker to not only satisfy old fans but being in a new generation?

Again the station smashing into the rings is beautiful especially as Rook is evil right up to the end.

But just when we think it’s over you know rightly that it isn’t because pregnant Kay took the injection so you know we are going to now visit shades of The Fly dream sequence.

Now we get Rook’s idea of the perfect human as Kay gives birth to a human hybrid that is part the Prometheus engineers and part xenomorph. Cue Alien Resurrection meets Covenant as rain must battle the creature before she and the others die. Kay is killed and we get Rain having to eject the creature out onto the rings killing it. She and Andy are now free to get into the stasis pods and travel to Yvaga for a new life.

Aline Romulus is a greatest hits gone wrong after such a good start that sucks you into that universe as surely as seeing the Falcon does for Star Wars. There are some good ideas but they are not executed properly. The “return” of Ash as the bad guy is inspired because all you think of is Ripley and her crew. However that is to the new cast’s detriment as they don’t match up to those icons. You knew so much about the originals from a simple dinner table scene and their interactions than you do about these kids. The connection just is not there. All we know about Bjorn is that a synthetic closed a mine killing his mother to explain his hostility towards Andy which comes across as over done and flat. No one is going to empathise with him when he literally treats a person with special needs like that, synthetic or not. Deaths seem far too quick to happen with. little tension. It is almost as if they kill them off so Andy can get a stasis pod for the trip to Yvaga because he wasn’t going to allowed to go with them at first.

Alien Romulus feels like Picard season 2; taking elements that should blow fans off the screen yet diluting them in a noncohesive story that ultimately fails as a fan fest of the most brilliant parts of the franchise. All in all too many easter eggs to please the fans when they would have been better breaking barriers to deliver the definitive alien movie.