Alien: Romulus
The Alien franchise has had a rocky go of it lately. I LOVE the last two entries but many weren’t fans of Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017) upon release and even with a little distance and critical reevaluation most still don’t rank those two films very high on their list of favorite Alien films. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy this franchise so much. Ask anyone who has seen all 7 films in the series what their favorites are and you’ll get completely different answers from person to person. That’s because each film offers wildly different approaches; both in what story to tell and in how to tell that story. The result is a franchise where nearly every entry occupies a different genre of film. All are sci fi but throughout the series you’ll see elements of horror, action, philosophy, and even love. This week’s film feels like a course correction for the many who feel like the franchise peaked with its first two entries: Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986). It’s rarely a good sign when a film is made “for the fans” but this is the rare case where that approach works and I believe it is because the director, Fede Alvarez might be the biggest fan of them all. Alverez couples his love for this franchise with his skill with pace and use of setting to create a very solid entry. This is Alien: Romulus.
There’s a definite sense that Alvarez is going back to the basics of Scott’s first film (which is a good thing). Once again, we’re introduced to a crew of interstellar blue-collar workers, led by a heroine who we know will be forced to mine veins of courage in herself that she didn’t know were there. In this case, it’s Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny), a woman who believes that she’s reached her quota of hours in a mine on a planet that never gets sunshine, only to learn that the goalposts have been moved and she can’t get off of it for nearly another decade. While mourning her murdered future with her friends, she discovers that they have a plan to raid a space station that they’ve discovered floating above the planet. Get on board, take the cryo pods needed for the trip, and wake up in a new galaxy. What could go wrong?
Rain is joined closely on this journey by Andy (a scene stealing David Jonsson), an android whose objective is to care for Rain like a brother, and she cares for him as much in reverse. Most of the Alien films have used androids to ask some of their thorniest moral questions, and that’s the case again here in a number of twists that make Andy’s choices – the ones that should be guided by programming instead of human emotion – into some of the most interesting of the film. Without spoiling anything, Andy’s objective changes when the crew gets to the space station, and everyone discovers they’re not alone. Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu star as the other travelers who will learn what a Facehugger is the hard way.
Romulus has an almost charmingly direct plot: Five people and a synthetic find their way aboard a space station carrying some truly perfect killing machines and have to fight to escape. That’s about it. The thin plot allows Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues to focus on world-building and set pieces. The production design here by Naaman Marshall (who worked on The Dark Knight and The Prestige) is some of the best in a blockbuster sci-fi movie in a very long time. Like the original, there’s a sense that the space these characters occupy isn’t a sterile set but a place that has been lived – and died – in before. It’s hard to overstate the importance of that in a film like this. When we feel like the people in jeopardy are in real, three-dimensional places with histories of their own, we can feel like their plight is real too. Alvarez and his team have created a phenomenal setting on Romulus and Remus, the two halves of the space station on which almost all of this film takes place. Like the original Alien this film goes for a claustrophobic environment to put the audience on edge showing Alvarez understands why that first entry is a masterpiece.
He also knows how to stage a sequence. It’s hard to pick a favorite here, whether it’s a chase down a hallway with an army of Facehuggers or a stunningly well-crafted elevator sequence, or the bonkers final scenes that are likely to be the most divisive aspect of this film. Editor Jake Roberts (Hell or High Water) does phenomenal work here, too, knowing exactly how to cut this film to amplify tension, and cinematographer Galo Olivares pays homage to past imagery from this series while also giving the film a sweaty, dark, foreboding visual palette of its own.
Performance has always been an essential aspect of this series, whether it’s Sigourney Weaver or Michael Fassbender, and Spaeny and Jonsson shine. The star of Priscilla gives a very physical turn, allowing us to feel Rain’s terror in subtle ways. She never resorts to histrionics, playing Rain like a person who has been forced to “get the job done” before and will do so again today. While Spaeny’s work is likely to be underrated, people will almost certainly respond to the excellent turn by Jonsson, an actor who knows how to use his expressive face to maximum effect. Again, Andy has arguably the most notable arc here, and Jonsson nails every turn in it.
The first Alien is notoriously known as a haunted house movie in space. It’s a single location with an alien instead of a ghost. Alien: Romulus understands this, seeking to replicate all of the ingredients that go into this time-tested formula. We want to feel as trapped as the characters in a haunted house or on a spaceship, wondering how they could possibly escape a nightmare that’s growing in intensity with each passing minute. And we do. Remember “in space, no one can hear you scream.”
