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Lauren Bradshaw

If you’re anything like me, the ALIEN franchise has changed the way you feel about episodes of heartburn. And if the latest entry in the franchise, ALIEN: ROMULUS, is any indication, you won’t be feeling comfortable about that pain in your chest anytime soon. Writer/director Fede Àlvarez swings for the fences, leaning significantly more into the horror elements than sci-fi and making the film an extra bloody, jump-scare-riddled thrill ride. ROMULUS admittedly goes a bit too off the rails in the third act, which unfortunately decreased my enjoyment of the film, but I can appreciate that Àlvarez took a risk and gave a new look to a legendary element of cinematic history.

Taking place between ALIEN (1979) and ALIENS (1986), ROMULUS opens on the mining colony, Jackson’s Star. Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her protective, adopted brother Andy (David Jonsson) are looking for their ticket off-planet to escape the deadly environmental conditions that killed their parents and are continuing to make others sick. Their salvation comes in the form of a hair-brained scheme from Rain’s friends, who have decided to explore a decommissioned space station and acquire cryosleep pods. With those pods, they will be able to outfit their own ship with the ability to travel to a more habitable one light years away. But of course, when they get to the station, they realize there may be more to the story and instead of being decommissioned, the ship may have been :ahem: overrun.

The ALIEN films have always held a special place in my heart, mostly because each prominently features a badass female lead. ROMULUS is no exception. Cailee Spaeny makes the film her own, displaying both vulnerability and extreme courage in the face of the most terrifying situation imaginable. Her relationship with David Jonsson is the heart of the film, and was what I rooted for most. The other characters were more or less expendable, but Rain and Andy are the new power duo of the series and I am here for it.

More than anything, it’s clear from the opening title to the closing credits that Àlvarez is both a fan of and respects the ALIEN franchise, sprinkling throwback Easter eggs to the preceding films but never getting too campy. Well, except for one character’s recitation of a famous line uttered by Sigourney Weaver that was a little cringe… but I at least loved the reaction it got from the audience. It’s clear Àlvarez knows what fans want to see in an ALIEN film and completely plays the hits, with copious amounts of face-huggers, xenomorphs… and stupid space explorers making poor decisions (a franchise staple!). But one of the things I appreciate most about the film is that there is a lot of creativity and thought put into the major set pieces. Without giving too much away, I especially love the way Àlvarez plays with gravity to avoid some major issues about fighting xenomorphs in space.

Now for some of the bad news. There is a lot of plot… and with that, there are several plot holes. Maybe things will be cleared up more when I watch the movie again, but I found myself wondering things like why would a giant, trillion-dollar research ship be left to plummet into the atmosphere of a resource-rich planet? Was the Weyland-Yutani Company aware the ship had been overrun and hoped drifting it into the planet’s atmosphere would disintegrate the vessel and kill everything on board? But the company knows Xenomorphs are resilient; wouldn’t that risk the mining planet being overtaken by surviving aliens? I won’t go too far down these rabbit holes, but because there was so much going on, it leaves more room for question spirals like the above. The script also left little room to understand the strength of the friendships between characters, apart from Andy and Rain. I kept being surprised that the crew was so willing to risk it all to help each other when the movie didn’t do enough to build the relationships.

Still, the most egregious part of the film is something that happens late in the third act. Again, I appreciate big risks to shake up the franchise, but this one did not work for me in its execution. The movie already felt like it had ended and I was totally loving what we were left with… but then an even more outrageous event happens that pummels the movie into another fifteen minutes of mind-numbing action that seems to be there for shock value more than anything. Additionally, the CGI for one of the characters in the film (you will know it when you see it) is not great and extremely distracting; the uncanny valley effect is tough to ignore and I would have preferred not having a cameo.

The ALIEN franchise is one of my absolute favorites, and if you love it too, you are going to enjoy ROMULUS — even if it does go a bit too far in the end. See it in the biggest, loudest theater you can so you can jump out of your seat multiple times like I did and enjoy the collective tension permeating through the audience. Or, if you’re feeling really brave, see the film in 4DX so you can feel the xenomorph’s wet, acidic saliva drip down the back of your neck.