David Farnor | On 20, Oct 2024

Director: Fede Álvarez
Cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu
Certificate: 15

“Whatever comes, I’ll face it.” That’s the sound of the Alien series getting a resilient new hero in the form of Rain (Cailee Spaeny). Alien: Romulus picks up events after Alien and before Aliens, but Rain is decades younger than the first two films’ iconic protagonist, Ripley, and that age gap brings with it a fresh shot of young blood for the franchise.

Rain is a miner in the colony of Jackson’s Star, a barely hospitable planet where conditions inside the terraformed world are no less hostile. Working for for the Weyland-Yutani corporation to pay off a debt that she’ll never be clear of, her only companion is Andy (David Jonsson), an android who was reprogrammed by her late father to be her brother. With little hope on the horizon, she’s persuaded to join a desperate escape attempt with her ex-boyfriend, Tyler (Archie Renaux), his pregnant sister, Kay (Isabela Merced), and his cousin, Bjorn (Spike Fearn), plus Bjorn’s sister, Navarro (Aileen Wu). The plan? To raid a derelict ship – with some functioning cryopods on board – and travel to the planet Yvaga.

Needless to say, the derelict ship isn’t exactly devoid of life, and what ensues is an encounter with – you guessed it – the xenomorph in all its grisly and harrowing forms. The script, by director Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, smartly blends the best beats of Ridley Scott’s original Alien with dashes of the sequels that followed, from the malfunctioning android trying to be more human to setting most of the film in a claustrophobic tin can with a hull that can easily be melted by acid blood.

Álvarez is no stranger to revisiting existing IP, but he does the best work of his career with this innovative remix of old haunts. One decision to make a nod to a familiar face from the franchise is a serious misstep, but there’s something satisfying in the cohesiveness of the narrative, right down to the appearance of the black goo from Prometheus, without it intruding upon a largely standalone scenario.

Álvarez stuffs that scenario with some truly frightening sequences, from a nailbiting chase involving multiple facehuggers to a stunning use of anti-gravity. Elevators, auto-targeting guns and a light that can see through flesh are all creatively deployed to give a new edge to established concepts – you’ll wince, gasp and shout at the screen repeatedly. The horror ramps up steadily, while the pace masterfully moves between James Cameron-esque action and Ridley Scott-like stillness – and the technology feels modern while still of a piece with the dated, retro stylings of its bookending counterparts.

The actual characters aren’t as fleshed out as they could be, but there are tensions aplenty between them, as loyalties new and old mean the ragtag bunch can split up all too easily into more vulnerable targets. Isabela Merced, with double the human life at stake, is amiably determined, while Archie Renaux’s Tyler is nicely perched just on the wrong side of trustworthy. It’s Rain and Andy who get the meatiest roles. Rye Lane’s David Jonsson brilliantly balancing calculations and emotional conflict as he switches from bad jokes to devoted compassion, with the odd blip of other programming in between. He’s at once slightly detached and disarmingly earnest, with strong sibling chemistry to match his deceptive physical strength. Cailee Spaeny, meanwhile follows up Priscilla and Civil War with another star-making performance, giving Rain a winning mix of sincerity, steel and inventive problem-solving.

The xenomorph, naturally, steals the show with the unnatural evolutions of its life cycle, but Alien: Romulus does more than just scare us with grim flashes of practical horror. It recaptures some of the central themes of the original film, concerning itself not with questions of how human life is created but the fact that it has worth. The result is a rousing survival thriller, as a new generation of young people stare down the dark barrel of a greedy corporation that doesn’t value them – and dare to face anything the universe might throw at them to reclaim their futures.

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