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Corrosive Fan Service Melts Away Alien: Romulus‘ Greater Potential

Corrosive Fan Service Melts Away Alien: Romulus‘ Greater Potential

Horror movies face a near-universal plight. If they make enough money or are any good (this part is optional), they will almost inevitably be milked so thoroughly and shamelessly that the original film’s innovative frights eventually become a distant bad dream. Alien has had it better than most–sure, there may be nine movies and counting, including the truly dismal Alien vs. Predator duology and plenty of other stinkers, but at least it got one of the best horror sequels of all time in James Cameron’s Aliens. Now, after the flawed prequels (Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) that answered questions no one was asking, there’s another entry which has to shoulder the burden of this long-running franchise: Alien: Romulus. Unfortunately, it ultimately crumbles under the weight of this series’ legacy.

Set between the events of the first two films in the franchise, filmmaker Fede Álvarez’s (Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe) entry gets off to a strong start and frequently shows real panache in its creeping dread, smart worldbuilding and creatively depraved torture chamber scenarios. However, as it goes on, it loses momentum, increasingly giving in to a base desire that threatens many sequels: fan service. In trying to craft the perfect specimen, it pulls from Alien, Aliens and, most distressingly, Prometheus, resulting in an overstuffed amalgamation that bursts open like a xenomorph from a chest cavity.

The initial 20 minutes are the strongest. We’re thrust into the middle of a Weyland-Yutani mining colony, exactly as dire as you’d expect from this evil corporation. It’s there that Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny), a young woman orphaned by the horrific working conditions that plague this company-run planet, lives with her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), an android reprogrammed by Rain’s dad before his passing. After years of barely scraping by, Rain finally meets the work quota necessary to secure a flight off-world. However, when she puts in her transfer papers, she realizes the truth: the company won’t allow anyone to leave.

So she meets up with a few old friends (i.e., cannon fodder), and they concoct a plan. They’ll board a derelict research station that recently entered their planet’s orbit, steal the Weyland-Yutani cryo pods they need to survive deep space travel, and then leave this place for good. They’ll be in and out in 30 minutes. Of course, it isn’t that easy, and you can probably imagine the particular brand of extraterrestrial horrors they find aboard that abandoned ship.

While Romulus’ biggest, overarching problem is its inability to break from the gravity of its franchise, its introductory sequence will have you thinking otherwise. The opening minutes get across what it’s like to live under a sunless sky (this mining planet’s atmosphere is encased in dreary smog) as Álvarez and cinematographer Galo Olivares channel a different Ridley Scott sci-fi movie than the one you’d expect, Blade Runner. Artificial light pours in through window slats, and much like the canaries we see workers taking into these mines, the people here are trapped in a cage. It’s positively bleak and the logical conclusion of the settler-colonial corporation we’ve seen in the other films that only cares about “the bigger picture,” regardless of the human cost.

Our characters are bound to this late-capitalist hellscape; Rain is essentially born into indentured servitude, and as an android, Andy is very literally treated as property. But despite their grim circumstances, the family ties between these two are the movie’s emotional anchor, a relationship that becomes increasingly strained as they explore this vessel with their companions. However, for better or worse, this broader group is never positioned as anything more than a bunch of extras who will inevitably bite it. Although that helps with the teen-slasher sensibilities on display here, and the performances themselves are solid, it would have been nice if there was more chemistry between this crew, or a reason to care about their demises. If nothing else though, these characters feel like a response to criticisms around how astoundingly bumbling the prequels’ hapless victims were; in particular, Rain possesses something that’s basically a superpower in this type of film: good judgment.

And that good judgement is something she’ll need, because this facility is packed with things that want to (and succeed at) whittling down this group. Through its first hour, Alien: Romulus generates genuine dread as this group creeps down abandoned corridors, their every step flirting with disaster. Benjamin Wallfisch’s score captures a creeping sense of wrongness, as otherworldly chants underscore that these people are in the presence of a deep space horror that should have never been discovered. This stretch moves with relative patience as the camera slowly pans across a shattered vessel full of environmental storytelling cues–ones that mean nothing to these clueless interlopers, but drip with acidic dramatic irony for those familiar with these movies. We know that around any corner is something beyond these people’s worst fears, and Álvarez wrings every morsel out of this awful silence.

As things get louder, there are plenty of nightmare scenarios that pop–a knee-deep pool of liquid filled with creepy-crawlies, a silent march through a room where the slightest sound could mean death, and a whole bunch of emotionally devastating trolley problems. The creatures themselves are brought to life with a combination of practical effects and CGI that mostly captures the uncomfortable details of H.R. Giger’s original designs. But for Rain, perhaps the scariest thing is that she has to watch as Andy is affected by a different kind of infection: corporate software that threatens to change who he is as a person. Is there anything scarier than someone you care about being reprogrammed? These considerations provide a hint of pathos amidst the grisly body horror (this one hits Prometheus levels of discomfort, particularly around its natal imagery).

But as things continue to escalate, the film less successfully kicks into Aliens mode, filling the screen with monstrosities but lacking the same gusto which made that sequel work (such as Bill Paxton’s legendary line readings, for instance). While there are still some strong moments once it’s made this turn, like a white-knuckled anti-gravity sequence, Romulus doesn’t exist as comfortably in this mode. By the end, the whole thing collapses , turning into a Frankensteined amalgamation of past Alien movies as it bursts at the seams with cloying references and baffling plot points. There’s an uninteresting cameo that cheapens the story, and things get worse with verbatim lines, scenario retreads and, worst of all, a climax that will leave everyone besides Prometheus fanboys scratching their heads. By the time the credits roll, most traces of originality are flushed out of the airlock.

Alien: Romulus’ dire finale makes it seem like Álvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues are simply too in love with Alien as an IP, eager to remind you of every cool (and not so cool) thing that previously happened with a superfan’s glee instead of charting their own course through dead space. It’s hard to know if this reverence is a symptom of studio meddling or an attempt to cater to reference-loving fandom culture, but the result is grating regardless. Although many of this series’ sequels are quite bad, many of them, even Alien vs. Predator and its juvenile antics, are doing their own thing. I will rag on Prometheus’ numerous flaws and tired callbacks until I draw my last breath, but at least it was doing something fundamentally different by exploring existential questions alongside its bucketloads of gore. By contrast, Alien: Romulus relies on you remembering specific plot points from that story as it pantomimes a denouement we’ve seen countless times. Alien: Romulus isn’t outright awful; its dystopian intro is compelling and there are quite a few devilishly constructed scares. But in its attempts to emulate every shifting form the series has taken over the years, it ends up less a perfect organism, and more a flawed creation that doesn’t meet company standards.

Director: Fede Álvarez
Writer: Fede Álvarez, Rodo Sayagues
Starring: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu
Release Date: August 16, 2024


Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant Games and TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to playing and watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves film, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Twitter @eli_gonzalez11.

 
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