Prequel, sequels, threequels, and whatnumberisthisoneagain-quels… has there been a more wildly heartbreaking body of work than the Alien franchise?

From 2 absolute master class films, to a litany of dross to follow, we come to it again and again hoping this next instalment – whatever it may be timeline wise – will be different. And no amount of pre-hype or pedigree (can you say David Fincher boys & girls?) seems to make a scrap of difference.  They either range from “it was ok” to “what the fuck was that?”

So when yet another one is announced and the trailer hits the socials – we hold our collective breaths and say “well… it looks slick. But so did Prometheus…”. And then we see the name of the director and we dare to do the one thing years of alien vs predator movies told us not to.  Hope.

Fede Álvarez is the helmsman of The Girl in the Spiders Web, Don’t Breathe and the Evil Dead remake.  All decent outings with Don’t Breathe a very notable one.

And with his name on the credits for this Xenomorph outing, will he do the impossible and create the spiritual 3rd film (ALL THE OTHERS DON’T COUNT) that the Alien trilogy cries out for?

Can this auteur from Uruguay carve out a name worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Cameron and Scott?

Let’s dig in, shall we?

Firstly, there is not a Romulan to be seen, so that’s a letdown straight away…

Secondly, this venture takes place some 20 years after the end of Alien, so Ripley is still floating around out there asleep with her cat in a capsule, and that’s interesting to think about.

Because one of the more annoying aspects of this franchise is that post Aliens, all the instalments (crossovers included) bar Three & Resurrection are PREQUELS.  Which means they continually have to retcon (in some way or another) humanities “first” interaction with the Xenomorph.

In fact, it’s gotten to the point that when Ripley & crew first encounter the Alien onboard the Nostromo, they’re basically the only humans who HAVEN’T met it yet!

But I digress.  Set up wise this film takes place on a mining moon, laced in the gritty low light aesthetic that is a moniker for all these movies now.  Life for the workers there is basically indentured, so ways to get off-planet are few and far between.

Thus when an opportunity presents itself in the shape of a seemingly abandoned orbiting spacecraft that for some reason NO ONE on the surface of this world can see other than a bunch of space Gen Z-ers, who happen to have a working spaceship (that belonged to their now dead parents, because the mines are filled with space asbestos, apparently) they see a way out of their bondage.  Because their ship has everything a group of kids need to travel to another world EXCEPT Cryosleep capsules.  Something this mystery spaceship above must surely have…

And thus we have our blueprint to get the ball rolling.  1 – Set a cast, 2 – throw them into a contained location, and then 3 – sprinkle them with Facehuggers. 

4 – rinse.

The how and the why there are Facehuggers on this mystery ship is a fine enough idea…but for the purposes of exploring more abstract and interesting observations, we shall leave that for you to discover on your own time.  For now, I will list off the immediate thoughts that struck me whilst watching this movie.

One – all the other Alien filmmakers have tipped their hat to Ridley’s and Cameron’s outings, naturally, but we are now entering an era of films from storytellers who were children when those first 2 flicks came out, and Álvarez is clearly printing out a love letter to them both with Romulus.  It is littered with numerous nods, ranging from set design, to television computer screens, 70’s 8-bit GFX, sound FX, Pink Floyd lighting, and of course, a perpetual motion beak dipping bird.

And that’s just the tip of the “let’s-see-what-else-we-can-jam-in-there-iceberg”.  

Two – it suffers – as you would expect – from the “Zombie Conundrum”.  Ie: We, the audience, know what the peril is and how it works.  The characters in the movie do not.  So we wait patiently whilst they play catch up, which means the film burns through valuable attention grabbing time.  There are of course creative ways around this – the best one is to show something new about the Alien’s “process”, but with so many films under the bridge, this is very difficult without completely retconning its history.  And that violates our list of what makes a great sequel (see below).

Three – The Sequel Checklist.  Does this hit it?  For fans of our reviews, The SOH Sequel checklist (AKA: Things you need to make a great sequel) looks like this…

• Does it respect the first film and not shit on it?
• Does it “fail” to be carbon copy of the first film?
• Does it add/expand on the legend/universe started by the first film?
• Does it still stay within the SAME SPIRIT established by the first film?
• Does it stand on its own 2 feet as a standalone film?

To which answer wise, I give it three yeses’, one kinda (but not really) and a sorta.

The Prognosis:

As to what answer goes with what point, I’ll leave that up to you to see & agree.  For Romulus is definitely worth checking out, but ultimately as a story it could have taken a few coins out it’s “homage” budget and drop them into its “make em care & they’ll scare” budget.

For the film only has 2 memorable leads (the actual leads) who are played by Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson.  A brother and sister duo with a twist.  Or it would have been had the trailer not given it away.  So that means with the rest of the cast, you’re kinda just waiting for them to get ganked.  Or not.  But you’re not holding your breath too hard when they do.  Or don’t.

They have one cool action set piece that is original.  Although several scientist friends of mine have already lamented its floating inaccuracy.  And for all its tributes towards the first 2 films (the only 2 worth tributing) it does dips into a controversial idea first explored in Alien Resurrection, and to its credit, actually pulls it off.  At least visually.

Overall, its not the spiritual threequel I’m still looking for (and I accept, may never find) but I will definitely be keen to see Alien Klingon Homeworld when it comes out. (See what I did there nerds?)

• Antony Yee