I am, admittedly, not the world’s biggest Alien franchise expert. I have seen about half of the movies released across the entire breadth of the Alien universe. I have, of course, seen Alien and Aliens. I mean: everyone should have seen those classics, right? From there, I’ve also seen the first Alien Vs Predator movie and Alien: Prometheus. And that’s it; that’s all I have. 

(Well, that’s untrue. The very first movie in the franchise I ever saw was Alien 3… way back when I was a kid, but I remember nothing about it. If I watched it again now, I’d count it as a first time watch since I couldn’t tell you anything that happens in it)

So what I am saying is that I may not be the definitive Alien expert, but I know what I like. And to that measurement, I know I think Alien was good, Aliens was fantastic, AvP was disappointing, and Prometheus was abject trash. But I also know that the trailer to Alien: Romulus looked pretty entertaining and definitely worth seeing in theaters while it was the new Dolby theater release at my AMC. I’m not entirely positive that it would be worth it in the cheaper theaters, but I just can’t resist the allure of those comfortable reclining seats. 

So the wife and I got our tickets and headed in, not sure what to expect. I saw where this movie fits in the Alien timeline (between Alien and Aliens), but that was the extent of my knowledge; I did not do an expansive rewatch of the series to get into the mindset. After all, if a sequel made seven years after the last movie released in a franchise–and presumably not direly tied to the last two movies in any meaningful way–can’t work as a stand-alone film, that’s the new movie’s fault, not mine!

Romulus is the story of Rain (Cailee Spaeny), an orphaned young woman working in indentured servitude to Weyland-Yutani. She has fulfilled her contracted 12,000 hours worked for them and dreams of moving on to a farming system. The corporation, however, has other plans and ups her required hours to freedom by another 12,000. That’s unnecessarily shitty, Weyland-Yutani! I feel like Rain really just needed a lawyer.

Along with Rain is her android, Andy (David Jonsson). He is an older, glitchier, refurbished model that Rain’s dad programmed with an overriding goal of doing what is best for Rain. The two consider each other siblings, and both desperately want to get off of their world and achieve a better life for themselves. 

To this end, they meet up with some of Rain’s friends who have formulated a plan to get themselves to freedom. This group of put-upon indentured servants plan on using THEIR SPACESHIP (!) to fly into orbit and board the old, abandoned Weyland-Yutani Romulus & Remus carrier that NO ONE ELSE HAS DISCOVERED YET (!!). From there, they will steal the carrier’s cryogenic pods and be able to travel to the farming world of which Rain dreams. 

You can tell by my excitement up there that this plot is nonsense, but more on that in a bit.

The cadre of young adults make it aboard the Romulus & Remus, and everything goes according to plan. Well, no; of course it doesn’t, because this is an Alien movie. They find a bunch of face-huggers and Xenomorphs. As well as a surprise guest from the franchise’s past.

Will any of them survive, and if Andy and Rain do, will they make it to the new home for which they long?

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson do a fantastic job as the lead roles here. I didn’t really doubt the ability of either based on Spaeny’s turn earlier this year in Civil War and Jonsson’s performance recently in Rye Lane. Rye Lane was one of the very favorite movies in recent memory as a matter of fact, and I also gave Civil War a glowing review. 

Putting the two young actors together was some inspired casting, and I was all the way in on whatever the two of them sold me. Their chemistry was great, and their ability to work as individuals was also superb. There is a stretch of the movie where Andy’s programming gets overwritten, and I genuinely cared and wanted him to get back to his primary self. That’s because I cared about the characters as the performers portrayed them!

+ When you move on to my Downs, you’ll see that I had some large problems with the late third act and some plot details thrown at us in the first act. But the rest of the flick is pretty damn good! The second act and early third act really sets up our protagonists in what seems to be a situation they can’t escape. The horror is well-managed, and the atmosphere is dreadful. Swaths of this movie are great and can really get under your skin and make you think “Wow, there’s no way to survive this, right?”. When Alien: Romulus works, it WORKS. 

– Okay, about my emphasis up there: where on [planet] did a group of indentured miners get their hands on a spaceship? Are spaceships as ubiquitous as Pop Vinyl figurines in the future? And do they cost just as much? Both my wife and I were bewildered at the idea that these kids in their hard-knock lives just had a space-fairing vessel lying around. 

But okay, fine. They have a spaceship. Cool. Whatever. I’ll buy that (note: I won’t), but that brings us to our next point of contention: how did this group of miners become the only people to find out the whereabouts of this HIGHLY IMPORTANT Weyland-Yutani carrier ship that just happens to be in orbit above their planet. When we learn what we ultimately do about the Romulus & Remus, it seems like the corporation would have every set of eyes imaginable looking for this thing, and it’s just… RIGHT THERE.

Right there above a planet where apparently everyone can afford space travel.

Look, I’m… I’ve seen some dumb things in Alien franchise movies. I saw a scientist try to pet a cobra alien. I know how these go. But I really wanted some better explanations for how our heroes get into the plot than what we get.

– Alien: Romulus is one of those movies that has a perfectly good ending, and then it messes everything up by just… continuing to go on. There is a Final Boss encounter that Rain and Andy have to deal with late in the film, and it is so laugh-worthy as to not be scary at all. The effects on it are bad and the entire visualization of it is just poorly imagined. I can’t imagine director Fede Alvarez and his team thought this was a worthy cap on a movie that was pretty good to this point. If they did, I legitimately question their judgment. 

OVERALL

While my first Down may be ticky-tacky “You’re thinking too hard about a dumb sci-fi movie, Stew” kind of stuff, my second down really did drag the movie for me. It all goes from being suspenseful and terrifying to silly and laughable. My score would be solidly higher if the flick ended before the Final Boss came into play. It’s a shame, because as I noted: what Romulus does well, it does VERY well. 

3.5 out of 5