Ask five different Alien fans what their favorite films in the franchise are and why they love them, and you'll likely get five different answers. Still, it almost goes without saying that each subsequent installment in the series is measured by its level of similarity to one of two films: Ridley Scott's 1979 original and James Cameron's 1986 sequel. Extraterrestrials. In Extraterrestrial: Romulusthe latest installment of the series, writer-director Fede Álvarez and frequent co-writer Rodo Sayagues (Don't breathe) wear their love for Scott and Cameron's films as proudly as any fan of the franchise would, to the detriment of the film's visual merit and narrative.
Set 20 years after the events of ForeignAlvarez's film focuses on Rain Carradine (Civil warCailee Spaeny ('s Cailee Spaeny) is an orphan living on Jackson's Star, a mining colony light-years from Earth that's engulfed in a dark, never-ending storm. Her mother and father are dead; her only companion is Andy (David Jonsson), a defective synthetic android whom she cares for like a foster brother. Desperate to find a means to escape the colony (and the clutches of the Weyland-Yutani corporation, the true central villain of the Alien franchise), Rain agrees to join a group of friends who break into an abandoned station that has drifted into orbit of their planet. What they find on board is not salvation, but a threat beyond their wildest imagination.
“Is it as good as Foreign either Extraterrestrials?” is the obvious question that fans of the franchise will ask when evaluating whether to watch Extraterrestrial: RomulusAlvarez and Sayagues seem to have been uncomfortably aware that this question was going to come up. They anticipated those five different answers about what Alien fans love about the previous films, and tried to split the difference between all of them and more. Like the Stations of Romulus and Remus that serve as the film's setting, Extraterrestrial: Romulus It consists of roughly two parts: a story of a haunted house in outer space in the style of Foreignand a crowd-pleasing action-horror spectacle like ExtraterrestrialsThe first element is stronger than the second in this case, and imbalance is one of the reasons. Extraterrestrial: Romulus It feels like a rehash of the franchise that defines it, rather than the resuscitative breath it so desperately needs.
Image: 20th Century Studios
There are rewarding aspects to this film: Extraterrestrial: Romulus'The production design and set design easily rank it as one of the most visually impressive sci-fi films released this year, meticulously replicating the futurism on cassette and the tactility of Scott's original film, while introducing “new” technology that seems to fit into the setting. Benjamin Wallfisch's score is another high point, echoing Jerry Goldsmith's iconic orchestral music from Foreign while introducing discordant and abrasive notes of industrial sound when things get ugly.
Spaeny and Jonsson are, without a doubt, the ones who offer the best performances of the cast of the film. Rain is obviously coded as Extraterrestrial: Romulus' Rain's answer to Ellen Ripley, though she's far from an exact copy of Sigourney Weaver's character. Rain isn't a seasoned space trucker with a knack for survival, she's a frightened young woman trying to pull herself out from under the crushing weight of corporate debt bondage.
When her love for Andy comes up against her chance to leave Jackson's Star, she has to weigh the consequences of that fateful decision against the choices she must make at every moment that mean the difference between her survival and certain death. She's trying to make the best of a shitty situation that only gets worse as more and more of her friends die. And the only way out of hell is to go through it and come out the other side.
Image: 20th Century Studios
Jonsson's performance as Andy is one of the most moving in the entire film. Andy is not… Extraterrestrial: Romulus' response to Ash, the first Foreign's android science officer turned antagonist. He's more of a reflection of Michael Fassbender's David from Prometheus and Extraterrestrial: CovenantIf anyone had ever bothered to teach him to love—or anythingin fact, apart from deference to its creator and the goals of Weyland-Yutani.
Just when Rain has to decide whether to leave without Andy, he is faced with the choice of abandoning Rain and his friends in service to the Company's interests in The xenomorphor fight for his survival, knowing full well that they might not do the same for him. The answer he arrives at, while predictable, speaks volumes about his resolve and strength of character in the face of overwhelming terror and the internal moral battle raging between his better angels and his company's programming.
How do you make the Xenomorph scary again after so many movies, all copying the original two films? In the case of Extraterrestrial: RomulusThe answer is simple: no. Alvarez never quite gets a handle on how to make the franchise-defining aliens feel menacing in a way viewers haven't already seen over the past 40 years. Despite some interspecies evolutionary shenanigans in the film's final act, Extraterrestrial: Romulus No answer of its own is ever presented as to why audiences should fear this incarnation of the creature, unlike every other previous iteration of the franchise. Some clever sequences make use of the xenomorphs in entertaining ways, including a standout scene featuring zero gravity. But this isn’t a film that depicts the franchise’s most iconic monster as a singular, inscrutable, acid-spitting apex predator; it’s just a swarm of Colonial Marine cannon fodder.
Image: 20th Century Studios
For those concerned about that Extraterrestrial: Romulus I could avoid Psychosexual imagery The early installments of the franchise were known for… don't worry, it's present here, albeit in limited numbers. We literally see a character stab an electric prod into an unmistakably vaginal bud before being confronted by what can only be described as a clitoris claw. Later, as acid seeps from a bud's mouth onto a victim's writhing body, a Xenomorph awakens from its gestation, shedding its amniotic shell as an erect penis juts out of the folds of its foreskin. Don't look at me like that: this is Another HR Giger spin-off filmafter all.
Fede Álvarez and company combined DNA from the original ForeignCameron's sequel and Scott's more recent prequels to see if anything new could emerge from them, but they don't introduce any new genetic material of their own. The result is a technically impressive but narratively routine horror thriller that takes every opportunity to ape its predecessors, while curiously contributing very little of its own to that legacy. That's fine if you're looking to re-experience a couple of your old favorite scares with a fresh coat of paint on them. But for everyone else, Extraterrestrial: Romulus It's a functional if disappointing entry in a franchise that's known for its relentless evolution.
Extraterrestrial: Romulus It opens in theaters on August 16.
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