Alien: Romulus (2024), directed by Fede Alvarez, stars Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Woo, and Ian Holm. This is the 7th film in the Alien franchise but takes place between the events of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986). It follows a group of young space colonists who discover a derelict spaceship containing expensive corporate equipment that would allow them to travel to a more habitable planet. With no other options, Rain (Spaeny) and her android brother Andy (Johnsson) reluctantly agree to join their friends thinking it will only be a simple salvage mission. Unfortunately for them, they soon find the abandoned ship crawling with Xenomorphs. This leads to a brutal fight for survival where only their cunning will get them out alive. 

Like many of the films in this franchise, Alien: Romulus struggles to feature human characters that feel unique or memorable outside of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. That being said, when keeping in mind this low bar, this is still one of the better installments character-wise. It carries over the effective terror that Ridley Scott was able to achieve in both Alien (1979) and Alien: Covenant (2017) while featuring characters with a bit more depth similar to Aliens (1986). Spaeny is the closest to Ripley we’ve gotten from the franchise’s various clones (literal or otherwise) of the character. This is cool and all, but the franchise is never going to find another iconic or even memorable lead if it keeps trying to replace Ripley. The biggest standout here is easily David Johnsson as Andy the Android. At this point in the franchise, I’m starting to wonder if these are just particularly juicy roles that allow the actors who portray them to easily stand out. Either way, I’m not trying to take away anything from what Johnsson does here, I’m just surprised by the series’ consistency. The rest of the cast prove to be strong performers and easily convey the necessary feelings of palpable terror, they just aren’t developed in ways that cause them to last in one’s memory. 

The technical aspects are strong and there are some cool visual callbacks to the original film such as the use of the same font for its opening titles. Unfortunately, this points to a trend that eventually becomes one of the film’s biggest issues: the use of callbacks, references, and easter eggs. Although the film is one of the scarier installments in the franchise, the shameless studio-smelling callbacks undercut the grounded and horrific tone it often intends to achieve. A lot of fans will say that this movie feels “Disneyfied” and I don’t blame them, but the more accurate description would be “corporatized,” as if there was a room of board members making a list of callbacks that the director was contracted to include. The film also seems to try to wrap up/tie in the mythology that Ridley Scott introduced in Prometheus, but this only ends up causing the same problems that film had. Although not as bad as the previous two installments, this still suffers from the fact that it can’t commit to which aspects of the mythology it wants to connect with.

Fortunately, Fede Alvarez constructs some creative and intense sequences that take full advantage of the Xenomorph threat. Unfortunately, the kills here are creatively underwhelming. There’s not a single memorable kill and the film disposes of its various victims in ways we’ve seen countless times throughout the franchise. Fede is great at sustaining tension, but I find he often lacks creativity in certain departments.

Overall, this is a decently fun flick that takes bits and pieces of various Alien films and remixes them into a hearty stew of an experience. That being said, that’s all it will ever be. No, not a stew, a remix. This plays at best like a really good cover of a great song that struggles to find its own identity. Although this provides a more traditionally satisfying Alien experience, I find myself preferring the thematic complexity and mythological originality of Ridley Scott’s previous two films. This just feels too predictable, pandering, and surface-level. At least it provides some great rock em sock em Xenomorph fun. B-