“This company’s not going to give us anything. We’ve got to take it.”

Justin’s rating: Auto-aiming? That’s a cheat mode!

Justin’s review: You know what’s something I really liked about the first four Alien movies? That each boasted a different director, lending a different tone and style. That’s something that I would like to see continue, so I was not only glad that we got a new Alien movie in 2024 but a new director as well in 2013 Evil Dead’s Fede Alvarez.

Rejecting the sometimes cool, often odd approach of Ridley Scott’s prequels, Alvarez created a midquel with Alien: Romulus — a story set between Alien and Aliens but without any of those characters. Sort of. Mostly. He also kicks things off in an interesting setting, a Weyland-Yutani terraforming colony on a dark planet where the workers are trapped in a miserable existence.

One of these corporate slaves is Rain (Cailee Spaeny), a young miner who’s desperate to leave with her android “brother” Andy (David Jonsson). When a group of other teens propose an excursion to loot a space station that’s decaying from orbit and will break apart in 36 hours. The haul could set them free — but the price ends up to be more than they’re willing to pay.

It turns out that this now-deserted station was the testing ground of a certain frozen xenomorph picked up near the Nostromo’s explosion. Forbidden science experiments combined with unwitting human hosts in a place that’s going to fall apart soon… that’s the recipe for a lot of stress, screaming, and things bursting out of body parts that they shouldn’t.

The focus on a younger cast is not only novel for the series, but it works for convincing us why this group is as impulsive as they are. They’re all fine, but the film mostly focuses down on Andy and Rain as the core duo, which is another interesting choice. Andy is a malfunctioning android rebuilt and repurposed by Rain’s now-dead dad as a surrogate sibling and protector, yet it’s Rain who’s often got to look out for him.

Andy starts out as somewhat simple and sweet, but when he gets an upgrade from a Weyland-Yutani chip, he begins to transform into a more ruthless being with divided loyalties. It’s fascinating to watch him calculate the odds of any given situation and make “trolly problem” calls with cold detachment.

Oh, and I should mention that one of the teens is pregnant, which is like a ticking time bomb in an Alien movie. Don’t expect delightful gender reveals here.

Alien: Romulus samples from the buffet of a franchise spanning nearly four decades, and that comes with some highlights and lowlights. I adore the chunky industrial sets and props that draw from the 1979 movie (not to mention the space station aesthetic clearly inspired by the popular 2014 Alien Isolation video game). It makes for a beautiful and striking film in many parts. This simply feels like a proper Alien movie in a way that nothing has since the ’90s (and I say that as a guy who likes Alien Covenant).

There’s also a much greater reliance on practical effects, and you can really tell. There’s a tactility to real things that computer graphics, even in 2024, can’t replicate. This makes for a world that feels lived in.

But I gotta complain about something, yeah? And with all of the series sampling for inspiration, Alvarez and his team couldn’t resist falling into that same trap that so many other legacy sequels do, which is overdoing the homages. Moments and lines from the other movies are aped here, and they reek of desperation much the same as your high school principal coming on stage and performing a “rap” while wearing baggy pants and a backwards hat.

We especially didn’t need CGI Ian Holm resurrected to be a bad Ash-like android again, albeit one called Rook. It’s so unnecessary and disrespectful, just like CGI Grand Moff Tarkin and CGI George Reeves.

Seriously, stop this crap, Hollywood. You can have a sequel that functions independently of its progenitor. You don’t have to keep throwing in piles of fan service in fear that the audience might wander away. It’s pandering and distracting. And having it pop up here takes what could’ve been a terrific film and reducing it to a pretty good one.

Unfortunate callbacks aside, Romulus does a fine job replicating the “haunted house in space” maxim of the original, especially as the group tiptoes through a dead station infested by far too many creepy crawlies for their taste. The intense sound design, just as much as the visuals, really sells the threat and atmosphere. It’s a great movie to blast with a soundbar if you have one.

I’ll confess that I was more than a little nervous to watch this, knowing how freaky and gruesome Fede Alvarez can be. I’m not a gore junkie — I’m an Alien fan. The goopy body horror isn’t really why I show up for these films, believe it or not.

As the movie went on, I felt that the sets and direction were incredibly reminiscent of a video game and even a theme park. Lurking death aside, this looks like a pretty cool place to explore, especially if it was around Halloween time. And the zero G acid blood scene — you’ll know it when it happens — is fully worth the price of admission.

In the end, I’m willing to forgive Alien: Romulus’ missteps for giving us a truly good Alien movie that fits well with the franchise and builds upon the universe. I had a great time with it and welcome it into the xenomorph family.

Intermission!

• The Fox logo does the same creepy drawn-out note that Alien 3 did
• OK this theme song is a little over-the-top
• Robot puns are the worst puns
• A literal canary going into a mine
• I do wonder where these kids got their own spaceship, that seemed like it needed some explanation
• That blastoff sequence — so cool, so pretty
• The temp scanner reminds me a lot of the motion sensor
• The gravity generators going off and online
• Military gestures are effective and cool
• The giant hole melted in the floor
• Getting trapped in a cryo chamber with thawing facehuggers is an unfortunate place to be
• That “oh crap” moment when you see how many facehugger pods there are
• 39 minutes to the first facehugger
• The remnants of Big Chap
• “What are the odds?” “60-40 against your friends.”
• The alien seems to gestate too fast here
• Facehuggers mostly track you through heat
• Maybe don’t go poking your stun stick into the alien hole, that’s your advice for the day
• One-hour mark until we see a full-grown alien
• The xenomorph’s joints popping as it’s “born” is creepy
• “Run.”
• “I’m afraid I have a new directive…”
• Pulse rifles! About time.
• The alien hive hallway is deliciously creepy
• The zero gee acid scene is amazing
• The space station disintegrating is beautiful to behold