‘Alien: Romulus’ Chooses Mediocrity
Pumped full of callbacks (and the ghost of Ian Holm), the seventh Alien film is perfectly okay until it makes the remarkable decision halfway through to be a much less interesting film.
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The Alien franchise is one of mankind’s biggest mistakes1. Not in the sense that it’s a bad addition to our pop culture—Alien is a near-perfect horror-sci-fi film, and Aliens is a near-perfect sequel—but in the sense that we clearly should have stopped there, as every subsequent Alien film is trying to be one of those two foundational films, and failing2. Alien:Romulus kind of proves that our collective New year’s Resolution for the coming year ought to be to stop making more Alien movies3.
Romulus doesn’t even try that hard—it’s essentially an attempt to be both of the first two films at once, combining the gritty class struggle and Bug Hunt horror of the original with the brilliant exponentialism of the second, with just a dash of the philosophical mindfuckery of Prometheus and Covenant. It’s so dedicated to calling back to the glory days of 1979 and 19864, respectively, that it makes its intentions bleakly obvious with some of the least elegant callbacks in modern memory. From “Get away from her, you bitch!” to a vulnerable woman stalked by a monster in her underwear, Alien: Romulus never fails to hit you over the head with a “DID YOU NOTICE OUR OBVIOUS REFERENCE TO ALIEN LORE? DID YOU?” moment5.
For all of that, I was actually kind of enjoying Alien:Romulus in a basic way. It’s well made, and if it isn’t particularly innovative or original (it’s literally set between the first two movies, as if advertising its intention to just merge them into one lesser story), hell, neither are most of the stories I write6. I was actually kind of along for the ride right up until the filmmakers made the incredibly bizarre decision to take the one aspect of the story that was kind of interesting and delete it. They consciously chose to make their movie less interesting, which certainly is … a choice7.
I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But You Have My Sympathies
The basic plot of Romulus is serviceable: On the miserable mining colony LV-410, Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny8) is desperate to escape her indentured servitude to the Weyland-Yutami corporation after she’s informed that she has to work another twelve years before she can leave9. When her ex boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) pulls her into a scheme to escape by stealing some cryogenic tubes from a wrecked space station that’s been pulled into LV-410’s orbit, she joins in, knowing that her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson)—a malfunctioning synthetic programmed to always do what is best for Rain—is crucial to the success of the mission because he’s a Weyland-Yutami product who can gain access to the station’s systems.
What they don’t know is that the station—the Renaissance, split into two halves called Romulus and Remus—took in the original xenomorph from the Nostromo in the first Alien film, which proceeded to, you know, kill everyone. Plus, the researchers tried to genetically modify and 3D-print the xenomorph10, so the whole station is a combination tomb and nightmare killing field.
When Tyler and his cousin Bjorn are trapped in a room filled with the facehugging versions of the xenomorph, Rain grabs the control chip from the station’s damaged science officer, Rook (Holm) and has them insert it into Andy to elevate his security clearance so he can rescue them. This works, but also changes Andy’s programming—he’s no longer dedicated to Rain’s welfare, he’s a company android now.
And that’s the most interesting thing about this story, which is otherwise a pretty predictable collection of story beats stolen from the first two films in the franchise11. You might think that Andy’s struggle for sentience and true self determination would be fascinating—can he shirk off his prime directive to preserve the station’s research at the expense of the human assets (including his “sister” Rain)? Or will he submit to his programming and damn them all? For about half an hour, the film teases you that this will, indeed, be a major component of the story.
And then it shrugs and says, nah. Let’s reset everything and just get back to slavishly replicating the first two films. After escaping the xenomorph and leaving Andy behind, crippled with damage, Rain decides to go back and rescue her “brother”—and removes the control chip, reverting Andy back to the sweet, addled AI he was before. In a flash, the only truly interesting aspect of this story is deleted12.
I'm Afraid I Must Deny Your Petition
The Alien franchise suffers from the perfection of the first two films—once you’ve done bug hunt horror in a hermetically-sealed spaceship and then upped the ante the only logical way by adding that “S” to the end of the title, all that’s left is to introduce increasingly weird ideas to expand the lore around the xenomorph—mutations, ever-shifting origin stories—while trying to replicate the magic of the original by finding new, suffocating settings (Alien3) or new ways to deploy armies of xenomorphs (Alien: Resurrection). It will never really work, of course, as every iteration will just be a pale reflection of the first go-round.
But Alien: Romulus had at least one decent idea in there, until it didn’t. The “synthetics” have always been treated as simultaneously essential, sympathetic, and threatening without ever seeing a deep dive into their nature or potential13, so having Andy struggle with his newly expanded capabilities and his nearly-human programmed affection for Rain could have created lots of great tension and led to some surprisingly emotional beats in the story. Instead, the writers retreat from that interesting path and lock the story into a more predictable pattern, possibly because it allowed them more opportunities to cram in fan-service references to the preceding films and video games.
Still, I will never not watch a new film set in the bleak, final-stage capitalism hellhole that is the Alien universe. So I guess it’s kind of my fault that these mediocre movies get made, huh? It’s me! I’m the problem, it’s me.
NEXT WEEK: Great scenes in not-so-great shows.
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Rivaled only by flavored whiskey and Crocs.
Increasingly I believe that when aliens finally dig up the smoldering remains of human civilization their analysis will be a series of “Well, if the humans had just stopped there they would have been fine” statements.
Unless someone hands me $150 million to make an Alien movie, in which case I disavow everything I’ve ever said, ever and I’m off to buy some cool stuff.
My own glory days, apparently, have yet to begin. In 1979 I was adorable. In 1986 I was The High King Nerd of Nerds. In 2024 I am … melting?
The worst is the ghostly visage of Ian Holm, appearing here as Rook, a synthetic science officer just like Ash from the original. I assume there was some contractual permission for the use of the very dead Holm’s image here, but it’s a fucking bleak reminder that Hollywood regards actors as meat that can be digitized and made to dance.
If you tell anyone I wrote that I will deny it.
Just like I choose to be less sober. It is a choice, albeit never a good one.
An actress afflicted with the appearance of being 12 years old at all times.
Funny, The Duchess says this exact thing to me every time I announce that am tired of making a living and would like to just float off into impoverished rest.
Yeah, the Alien timeline is scuppered at this point, because the universe is apparently both very familiar with the Xenomorph and also utterly surprised when it turns up.
They really need to make an Alien film that doesn’t advertise itself as one, that’s just a dark sci-fi story about survival until 50 minutes in when the xenomorph shows up and the crowed goes wild. Hollywood, call me. I have many such ideas to sell you.
The effect is similar to when I’m invited to a party and upon arrival I announce that under no circumstances will I drink a gallon of punch and take off my pants, and half the crowd leaves, grumbling in disappointment.
One wonders why the corporation doesn’t just send out an entire ship of Ian Holms to capture the aliens. ‘Sir, another ship was torn to pieces and we lost 37 Rooks.’ ‘Sigh. Well, send 100 Rooks this time. Upload some karate moves.’ Hollywood, call me. I have many such ideas to sell you.
I couldn't agree with you more. Hollywood seems so bereft of interesting ideas. Everything in the pipeline seems to be a twist-up recycled idea. Although Wicked is refreshing, it is a recycling of a stage play. Have any people in the movie-making business ever walked into a bookstore? There is so much unused potential.
And I'd buy a ticket to one of the movies based on your ideas in the article.
Love any reference to Willy Wonka.