Alien Romulus-Review: Return of The Black Goo

Look ma! Another Alien movie. And this one has Alien in the name! This one might actually have Aliens (Xenomorphs) instead of being about new creatures that Totally-Aren’t Xenomorphs! We’ve left the black goo nonsense behind!

Well. You were half right. And for the record, I actually like the black goo shit. But as an adult (I’m 25), I can recognize that the black goo shit is confusing and narratively unproductive. In fact, after 3 movies with it (Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and now Alien: Romulus), I can freely admit that almost nothing has actually happened with it. But let’s talk about the movie.

Alien: Romulus opens with a Weyland-Yutani (the big bad corporation) probe finding the wreck of the Nostromo, the ship from the original Alien. Aboard it, they find a cocoon. Because they are a big bad corporation, they do what corporations in sci films do. They leave it alone…NOPE! They take it back to their research station and promptly cut it open. We see a cool little shot of the top of the cocoon, the indention showing that there is indeed an Alien (Xenomorph) inside.

Boom, title card and now we are…on a planet, specifically the Jackson Star colony, which seems to be a run down mining based economy. Our lead, Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) is one such miner. While out with her adopted brother Andy, who is a malfunctioning android (it’s depressing), Rain discovers that her work contract has been forcibly extended and instead of being done with her contract, she owes the company another 5-6 years.

Rain isn’t having that and so she meets up with Tyler, her ex-boyfriend, Kay, his sister and their (Tyler and Kay’s) cousins Bjorn and Navarro to discuss a plan. Now, that’s a lot of characters to introduce in one line, but that’s okay because those are almost all of the characters in the movie. That was a very productive line. The only other thing you need to know is that they’re all miners and basically all in the same predicament as Kay. They want to escape and desperate to find the means. Their long term goal is the planet Yvaga III, which is 9 years away (we measure distance in years because in Alien everyone does cryosleep on space ships.)

So what happens next? Well, it turns out that a “decommissioned” Weyland-Yutani ship is floating right above them in the upper atmosphere and it’s full of loot and goodies, specifically, cryopods and cryofuel, which is needed to go to Yvaga III. So our ragtag band hops in a “hauler” space ship and heads that way. Now, this scene was actually awesome. The hauler goes straight up, like, it takes off and just basically ascends into space in an upright position.

So they get on up there and lo and behold, it’s not a ship- it’s a whole ass space-station, with two distinct sides, Remus and, you guessed it, Romulus. And it’s also not decommissioned. It appears to be the scene of some weird calamity. But that’s no problem at all. Tyler and Bjorn board and restart the power, dragging Andy along to they can use android capabilities to open doors. Bjorn bullies Andy because Bjorn’s mother was indirectly killed by an android and Andy is kind of…special, so it’s really sad and awkward. Then, they arrive at the cryopods and find out they don’t have enough fuel. So we got to go look for some more. And they find it, a whole room of it. However, as they start to siphon it off, it begins thawing out some stuff that was kept frozen in that particular room. If you guessed that these things are Alien related, you would be correct. And that’s when the movie really starts.

But I can’t just spoil this movie for you. It would be an injustice. I can only spoil parts of it. That’s a fair trade. Because now we have to make a verdict. Is this a good movie?

Kinda.

In a weird way, it reminded me Star Wars: The Force Awakens in that it was a new movie that continued the in-franchise story, but it was very reboot-esque in it’s actual execution. We have an Alien, a spaceship, a tough brunette female lead, an android, another android, a bunch of other characters, some of whom you don’t mind dying, others you hope live. When you get to the meat of the film, it’s very by the numbers, even if the garnish (the early setup) is interesting.

I loved the cinematography, I felt like Act 1 was excellent, but then I was kind of like…ok, this is Alien with extra steps. I mean there’s some deviations, but, yeah, it’s like Alien. People in contained spaces running from an almost unkillable force. It plays, it always has. This franchise has nine movies. We know what works in an Alien movie. And in general, Fete Alvarez, the director, makes that kind of movie.

The problem isn’t that this movie doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it’s that when it does, maybe it shouldn’t. For example, the whole “Black Goo Pregnancy Monster” sequence is a staple at this point (and it’s absolutely disgusting in this movie). But the following Act 3-Part 2 surprise feels unearned and slapped on. It’s supposed to be a Prometheus reference, but it doesn’t even feel necessary. The “black goo” would’ve been enough.

And then we get the android from Alien and he says and acts the same way as he did in that movie. Oh, and he’s a CGI deepfake because he was already an older actor when the first movie was made 50 years ago. But that’s not enough- there’s some blatant Alien/s callbacks in the script, many in places they don’t fit and you can tell that they maybe rewatched the previous films too many times while making this. It feels a bit like a fanmade film from a script perspective. It has some smart narrative elements, but these elements are simply ways of taking us somewhere we’ve already been before in this franchise.

But, I’ve criticized this film a little bit now and let’s reverse towards the other direction. Because if I hated this movie, I wouldn’t have written about it, because I’m not a hater and I don’t write about bullshit (except when I do.)

As much as there were things I didn’t love, my only real gripe is that this movie was a little too safe overall. It threw shit at the wall sometimes, but not enough, which is what it made it so jarring when it did. Like, we’re in an Alien rehash and then suddenly, it felt like we stepped into a Prometheus sequel for the last 15 minutes. I was having fun but also asking “What are we doing?”

And I did have fun. I enjoyed the movie. It’s a fun horror flick. I think if you haven’t seen the original Alien this isn’t a bad entry point. It’s scary, it’s tense and parts of it are very interesting. It looks amazing. The camera work and set design is kick ass. It’s never really boring. I think the movie succeeds far more than it fails, it’s just that the bar for success in the Alien franchise does tend to give you diminishing returns when you’re on the ninth movie.

I think in a vacuum, it’s actually a pretty good movie. But it’s so stuffed with “Look at this thing from that previous movie!” that it can be a little annoying and it does all of this while breaking a ton of established rules. Like, the Alien in this movie only gestates for like 10 minutes before bursting out of one of our characters, which kills the desired slowburn of narrative sequence. They spent 30 minutes building some peak tension and then sort of squandered it with a glut of action at the beginning of Act II. But the actual set piece encounters work, more or less. They aren’t really overly creative. I mean we get the “People trapped behind a door with an Alien/s in the room” setup twice, we get a spacesuit battle, we get “Suddenly Evil Android” and of course, we get “Live Birthing an Abomination.” And, as someone who enjoys the franchise, I like these setups and these moments, but I wasn’t blown away by their appearance for at minimum, the third time in as many movies.

But I’m happy to report that overall, this movie is not a disaster. It actually is a fun sci-fi experience that, once again, in a vacuum, you might think that it’s an excellent film. There’s bumps in the road, but so many of the little things are done right. The gore, the atmosphere, the sense that space is lonely and hostile, the fear of the unknown and the depths of human desperation- all classic Alien themes that shine through. I think the cinematography is the best in the franchise and the worldbuilding is pretty strong.

David Jonnson, who plays the android Andy, is phenomenal. Absolutely out of this world acting class. He nails being both powerless and in almost complete control. The body language he uses is brilliant and subtle. It’s a performance that really stands out, even though no one else in the film was bad either. Cailee Spaeny is pretty good too. I must reluctantly admit that CGI android was also pretty captivating when he was on screen, though I think that’s because he’s the exposition mouthpiece and has the most interesting lines. This is a well acted movie and even though the characters aren’t super deep (except Andy), it falls to the level of unserious.

There’s a lot to like in this movie if you’re an Alien fan and also if you’re new to the franchise. Where it gets dicey is for people like me who neither totally love the franchise but are very familiar with it. It’s not a big swing, but it’s a step in the right direction for a franchise that admittedly maybe gets too much bad press, or even just too much press.

We hold Alien movies to a standard that may not be fair. Nine movies in, and probably five of them are not great. And that’s if you’re like me and think Prometheus was kind of good. There’s no reason to show up and expect The Empire Strikes Back-Alien Edition or something like that. This is what these movies are- scary monsters in space, both outer and confined, with a healthy dash of bizarre sci-fi creation commentary. And there’s no reason to dislike this film if your expectations are reasonable.

Alien Romulus- it plays. It shows up to work and does the job. I wouldn’t give it an Oscar but I would slap a sticker on it that says “Crisis Averted.” And, if you want to watch this newest entry in the Alien franchise, it’s on Hulu.