REVIEW — “Alien: Romulus”

A full-tilt gore-fest soaked in buckets of blood, Alien: Romulus is a thrilling throwback to practical space horror.

Set 20 years after the events of Ridley Scott’s landmark 1979 original, the seventh entry in the Alien franchise, Alien: Romulus, goes to great lengths to recapture the isolated tension and practical horror of the first film, but with more gore and a visceral beating heart.

From producer Scott and 20th Century Studios, Alien: Romulus begins in the deafening silence of space, where no one can hear you scream. As the opening credits roll with similar throwback fonts, we are taken to the Jackson Star Mining Colony on a rainy, dystopian planet owned by the Weyland Yutani corporation.

There, we meet mine worker Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) who has worked to earn enough to leave the colony. She is accompanied by her synthetic “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), a malfunctioning Weyland Yutani droid left to her by her late parents with the sole programming objective to do what is best for Rain. They dream of a better life on another planet. Yet after earning her travel permit, Rain is told of a change in policy that now requires her to work another five years before she can travel.

Desperate for a way off-planet, Rain is lured by some friends (Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu) into pillaging an abandoned Weyland Yutani space station that’s hovering above them in orbit. You see, they need her loyal Andy to access the ship, loot its inventory of cryopods, and steal enough fuel for nine years of cryo sleep. However, they must move quickly as the entire space station will soon be sucked into a nearby astroid belt.

What they don’t know is that one of the derelict ships docked at the station, the Romulus, has retrieved the frozen remains of the very same Xenomorph that terrorized Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley and killed the crew of the Nostromo in Alien. As the young scavengers make their way through the deserted ship, they accidentally awaken throat-invading, chest-impregnating facehuggers and terrifying Alien lifeforms that begin picking them off one-by-one.

While the film would’ve hit harder if most of its kills weren’t given away in the trailers, director and writer Fede Alvarez manages to save several inventive sequences and a few shocking body-horror surprises (especially in the third act) that help set the film apart from inferior predecessors like Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection.

For instance, there is a memorable zero-gravity sequence that takes the Xenomorph’s powerfully corrosive acid blood to a perilous new level of fear and an birth sequence that helps strengthen the link between the original Alien saga and the recent Scott-directed prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, the latter of which dealt with a primordial goo circulating humanoid species that predated human and alien life.

There’s also an unexpected if not unsettling cameo in the form of a mangled Weyland Yutani droid named Rook. Played by a digital version of actor Ian Holm, Rook is identical to Ash, a duplicitous droid character the late actor portrayed in the original Alien. Like Ash, Rook’s primary orders are to safely preserve the perfect alien specimen, programming that is transferred to Andy when they use Rook’s chip to upgrade his skillset during an emergency. The sudden change to Andy’s standard operating system transforms him from an obedient servant into an advanced tactical droid with a corporate agenda that conflicts with Rain’s (and the rest of the crew’s) safety. This development threatens Rain and Andy’s familial bond.

While the rest of the crew are expendable idiots, selfish jerks, or helpless dummies, the duo’s connection helps form the heart of the film. Their relationship feels earned and heightens the film’s emotional stakes. Such a bond between characters has been largely absent in all other entries in the Alien franchise and has not appeared in this universe since Ripley and Newt’s mother-daughter relationship in James Cameron’s action-packed 1986 sequel, Aliens.

What could have been a forgettable and formulaic space-heist-gone-wrong monster movie, Alien: Romulus cleverly utilizes horrifying scares, face-paced plotting, ghastly practical effects, and an unexpected amount of heart to eclipse over 25 years worth of attempts at recapturing the tense terror and thrilling spectacle of the original films. The result is a scary, thrilling and gory race against time and fear that resets the franchise with a fierce new final girl. 4/5

Rated R with a running time of 1 hour, 59 minutes, Alien: Romulus opens exclusively in theaters nationwide August 16, 2024.