Alien: Romulus review – "Full of shocks and suspense but sometimes over-burdened"

Post-Deadpool and Wolverine, meet xenomorph Jesus. After various baggy saga entries, Alien: Romulus opens with a retrieval operation that hints at director Fede Alvarez’s (2013’s Evil Dead) back-to-basics, franchise-saving intentions, even before we see the salvage op’s spoilery find in a near-crucifixion pose. 

But it’s an aim that’s only partly fulfilled by an in-between-quel – post-Alien, pre-Aliens – that aspires to be all things to all Alien fans. Often tense and tangible, sometimes mean and majestic, Romulus also freights its leaner pleasures with excess franchise matter to frustrating effect.

After the medieval-future prologue, Alvarez flaunts his fan cred further with a drinking bird, some cornbread, a visit to the Jackson’s Star mining colony… Here, young Rain (Cailee Spaeny), her synthetic ‘brother’/protector Andy (David Jonsson) and friends prepare to flee their grim environs via an illicit jaunt to decommissioned space station the Renaissance. Onboard, however, terrible truths about the ship’s salvage work and science experiments emerge. With plunging probosces and lashing tails…

While a steady pace gives co-stars Isabela Merced, Aileen Wu, Archie Renaux and Spike Fearn breathing room, Alvarez’s skill with young actors (see Don’t Breathe) doesn’t quite translate to memorable characterisations here. Spaeny’s orphan is more persuasively rattled and resourceful, while Jonsson’s range impresses when his programming is altered following an encounter – in a questionable creative choice – with the station’s resident synthetic.

Alvarez’s Don’t Breathe form is more palpably felt in the ship’s tight spaces, notably during facehugger lunges in cryo-chambers and elsewhere. He’s sturdy if not quite spectacular with the splatter, scares and psychosexual imagery, giving us viscous ’burster births and a satisfyingly disgusting acid-for-blood death. The practical effects are pleasingly tactile, too, while Benjamin Wallfisch’s score summons the eerie grandeur, scuttle and lunge of Goldsmith/Horner judiciously.

Soon, our runaways are running and screaming to order. Less successfully, they’re also hellbent on quoting Alien films, to increasingly corny effect. The plot sometimes seems sculpted around such homages, rendering the pacing choppy. The set pieces suffer likewise, only occasionally gathering momentum, and Alvarez’s reach sometimes exceeds his grasp: notably, the lift-shaft scene defies gravity and conviction.

The climax also proves uncertain, stumbling more than it strikes as it echoes an ill-remembered Alien film. Alvarez’s freaky vision improves on the aforementioned episode, true, but the umbilical connection is unmistakable and over-familiar. Sometimes bold, sometimes over-reverent, Romulus might have executed a cleaner lift-off had Alvarez ejected some of the series baggage more decisively.

Alien: Romulus is released in US theaters and UK cinemas on August 16.

For more, here are our guides to how to watch the Alien movies in order and the movies and shows to watch before Alien: Romulus.