Director: Fede Alvarez
Cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fern, Aileen Wu
Screenplay: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues
119 mins. Rated R.

When 20th Century Studios was acquired by Disney, a lot of genre fans were a nervous about what would happen with their R-rated properties, but I feel like the past few years have shown me that our worries were unwarranted, as films like Prey, The First Omen, and yes, Alien: Romulus, show a thirst for the best in genre franchise offerings. 20th Century: keep doing what you are doing.

Set between Alien and Aliens, Romulus follows Rain (Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla) and her synthetic sibling Andy (David Jonsson, Rye Lane) as they join up with some old friends to scavenge the remains of an abandoned space station in hopes of getting the necessary cryo sleep tech to safely travel to a new home. What they find aboard is far more horrifying than they could’ve anticipated.

From moment one, it becomes clear how this film ties into the original films, how it respects what’s come before while also forging a new path. That’s the key to Alien: Romulus and its success: Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe) and his regular screenwriting partner Rodo Sayagues have crafted a film that is able to take all the old mythology and find new ways to drive the franchise forward. There are a number of action set pieces in Romulus that I’ve never seen in an Alien movie, and I’m so happy to see the innovation at play. There are connections to just about every part of the franchise in this one film, and Romulus uplifts those films by including them. I’m so excited for you all to see this movie.

Alvarez and production designer Naaman Marshall seemed to take a lot of inspiration from the original Alien in recreating the look and texture of that film in Romulus. Utilizing tech and design from the futuristic 1979 film gives a perfect look to this midquel and plants it solidly between the first two films, as opposed to the mistake I feel Prometheus made in its production design. Romulus looks like an Alien film, while Prometheus didn’t.

While the story isn’t mind-blowingly original, Romulus wins with its lead performances from Spaeny and Jonsson, and the sibling motif the film carries with. The ship they come to claim is separated into two halves, named for brother Remus and Romulus. Rain and Andy consider themselves siblings, though Andy is a synthetic, and they share a love that is notable from the very beginning. With that, we see the strain that the narrative puts on their relationship throughout, and how that love survives but changes as they are pulled in very different directions.

But you did come to find out if the xenomorphs are still awesome and they are! I would argue that the film prioritizes a lot more time with the facehuggers than expected, but I’m so happy it does, as we rarely get really fun set pieces with them as they get relegated to a plot machination, and the xenomorphs share a lot of screen time with a number of other surprises, but Alvarez’s focus on practical effects when possible make for a gorgeous and disgustingly entertaining experience.

Alien: Romulus adds a little something new to each of the Alien films while forging an excellent new path for this franchise. It makes some surprising swings that may not work for those who only like the two original films, but this Alien fan had a hell of a time. While it struggles with a few unnecessary dialogue callbacks and one character enhanced with some terrible CGI (the only notably bad CGI in the entire film), but I am so excited to say that it’s the best Alien film since the early 90s, and it comes highly recommended.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Ridley Scott’s Alien, click here.