You know that feeling of deja vu you get sometimes being hit with a realization of, "I think I've seen this before," or, "I've been to this place before. Haven't I?" That's the feeling I had more than once while watching the new science-fiction horror film, Alien: Romulus. Now all horror film lovers have seen the iconic 1979 film, Alien which broke the mold for this entire genre. Alien spawned three sequels, two spinoffs, and two prequels. This new release, Alien: Romulus is the third prequel in this gory saga of the nasty predatory alien creature harvesting human bodies and dripping slime in dark hallways.
When a group of five young mining workers sneak onto an abandoned space station to steal some equipment for a long journey, they discover the deadly remnants of laboratory experiments on a mysterious alien species. And get ready everyone, because these aliens are hungry! So everyone screams and scrambles for survival trying to escape the derelict space station without getting gobbled up or impaled.
This premise is a little tired since this is how many of the previous Alien films start. I'm referring mainly to the prequels, Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017). But what helps this recycled story feel interesting is a sixth member of this team being a human-looking android played by David Jonsson (Rye Lane, 2023) with a richly innocent awkwardness. This android gets a software upgrade about halfway into this film which drastically changes his priorities for survival (and his team members' survival).
Amazingly, after eight other films exploring all the facets of this universe, and these aliens, Alien: Romulus has some fresh moments. These moments include a chase scene with a stampede of the spider-like face huggers, a quiet getaway scene in a very hot room, and the patchy technology of the space station causing the anti-gravity restrictions to unexpectedly stop and start. All these moments are exciting and filled with well-crafted suspense. The director and co-screenwriter, Fede Alvarez (Don't Breathe, 2016) still knows how to keep viewers on edge.
But too much of this film hits the audience over the head with references to past Alien films. These references are visual, musical, and verbal, in some cases repeating the exact lines from famous Alien films of the past. And these references do not stop. (The film even revives an important character from a past film entirely through extensive digital effects!) The more they kept happening, the more I wanted to sit forward in my chair and yell at the screen the word, "No!" I left the theater thinking, "Is this film supposed to be an exploration of new ideas? Or is it supposed to be a walk down memory lane?" Director Fede Alvarez, and his co-screenwriter Rodo Sayagues, seem to think they can make this film do both.
I get how the nostalgic references are supposed to connect this film to the beginning themes of this whole franchise. Invisible blue collar workers fighting against the greedy corporate behemoth of capitalism. That theme starts out strongly at the beginning of this film, but then gets shoved out of the way for the excessive nostalgia. But I'm happy to say, overall, Alien: Romulus is not terrible. It's just okay. The past references are gluttonous, but the suspense has a forceful bite.
