Okay, so what did you think of ALIEN: ROMULUS? Not the typical way to start a mini-review, I know, but the fact is, after seeing it a fortnight ago on the weekend of release, I’m still not sure. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, and in terms of the series as a whole, it’s definitely closer to ALIEN/ALIENS in terms of quality than it is the ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR films, but it still didn’t satisfy me in the way I hoped it would.
I’m a huge fan of ALIEN, ALIENS, and ALIEN 3, and I’m more than happy to re-watch RESURRECTION, PROMETHEUS, and even ALIEN: COVENANT from time to time. COVENANT in particular is a strange one, I find. I really didn’t enjoy it first time around, but on subsequent viewings I’ve found more to recommend. I think PROMETHEUS and COVENANT are staggeringly beautiful films visually, but they still don’t hit the mark. I was hoping ROMULUS would buck the trend, yet it didn’t. I think I’ve worked out why.
While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.
I LOVED the opening of this film. But then, I loved the openings of PROMETHEUS and COVENANT too. With each of these films, there’s the promise of something new: a new mission, a new crew, a new planet… the possibilities feel endless. My problem with all of these sequels (and prequels), I’ve decided, is that rather than diverge as you might expect, all of the recent movies follow the same tried and tested path and finish in pretty much exactly the same way.
The set-up of ROMULUS is great. After an intriguing opening scene (featuring the glimpsed ruins of a very well known spaceship), we’re straight into life on the tough and exceedingly grim mining outpost Jackson’s Star. The world-building here is top-notch. It’s a desperate place, where work is inescapable and the sun never shines. We meet Rain (CAILEE SPAENY) and her adopted brother Andy (the excellent DAVID JONSSON – by the way, if you want to see him being equally brilliant in something completely different, check out the very lovely RYE LANE). Rain and her pals are desperate to get off the planet and escape via a trip to a secret space station orbiting the planet which appears to have been abandoned…
So far, so very different. And the first hour really is great. The film rattles along at a great pace, and it’s done with such style and conviction that you can overlook the heavy handed scripting where we’re literally walked through every location, gadget, and gizmo that the cast will need to survive (or not) the remainder of the film. Honestly, it’s so choreographed that it feels like you’re playing a video game at times. And that wouldn’t be so bad, I don’t think, were it not for the filmmakers’s constant desire to keep feeding us easter eggs. Ten years or so ago, the planting of easter eggs in movies felt fresh and original – subtle callbacks to earlier films we’ve known and loved. These days, though, it feels like there’s a callback quota that has to be hit. Honestly, in ROMULUS it’s not even subtle. In some ways it would be more palatable if the actors would break the fourth wall and acknowledge what they’re being asked to do. ‘Look at this smashing pulse rifle,’ one character says (okay, I’m paraphrasing). I half-expected someone to reply, ‘What, just like the one out of ALIENS?’ I’m not just being difficult here, I really do think that heavy-handed callbacks can be a distraction. When Andy says ‘get away from her, you bitch,’ at what feels like a random point, literally everyone in the cinema groaned. It immediately takes you out of the moment and reminds you that you’re watching a sequel to a movie you loved.
The second half of ROMULUS plays like a greatest hits album. Credit where it’s due, there are a few original twists and turns added. A zero gravity escape through pools of acid blood is fun (to watch, not for the characters), and I appreciated the attempt to tie the later films to PROMETHEUS a little more definitively. But, ultimately, I think any ALIEN story will always struggle to match the first two movies. Is it Ash in the original who describes the xenomorph as ‘the perfect organism’? It was hard to argue with that – with acid for blood, an rapidly accelerated growth rate, and a protective exoskeleton, the creature appeared virtually unbeatable (even though they inevitably always are). But with each new film, each new additional stage that’s added to the lifecycle, every new hybrid that’s created, the beauty and savagery of the original monster is eroded. Less is definitely more.
Like I said, I really enjoyed ROMULUS, and I keep going back to the other movies again and again, but aren’t they all telling the exact same story? That’s my biggest gripe. They begin with such a wide range of situations, but all climax with a variation on Ripley’s escape from the Nostromo and her battle with the alien in the escape shuttle at the end of the very first film.
Maybe it’s time to stop making ALIEN movies and develop some new IPs? But I guess the studio knows that as long as they keep making them, we’ll keep watching them.
