ALIEN: ROMULUS (2024) * ½

The Disney-produced Alien:  Romulus is reminiscent of the Disney-produced Star Wars movies.  It feels like it was made to milk an IP first and tell a story second.  And by “tell a story” I mean “rehash a lot of the past films and sprinkle in generous portions of fan service”.  The new Star Wars films worked, mostly because they were able to create memorable new characters.  This new Alien flick has no such luxury. 

The film takes place in between Alien and Aliens.  I only mention the timeline because the movie is keen to remind you about it too as these are the films that it is heavily referencing.  (There are also nods to Prometheus and most surprisingly, Alien:  Resurrection.)  However, it brings nothing new to the table but rehashed leftovers and unnecessary fan service.  (The callbacks and call forwards elicit more groans than anything.)

A team of young scavengers decide to steal from a derelict ship.  Naturally, the ship belongs to “The Company” and it just happens to be crawling with facehuggers.  Before long, they are latching onto the crew, who quickly give birth to Aliens. 

Not only is director and co-writer Fede Alvarez ripping off the first two Alien movies, he’s doing a riff on his own flick, Don’t Breathe.  Instead of thieves foolishly breaking into a house and getting more than they bargained for, it’s thieves foolishly breaking into a spaceship and getting more than they bargained for.  This isn’t bad in theory, especially since I consider Don’t Breathe to be a modern classic.  It’s just that the whole movie feels stale, and Alvarez is unsuccessful at finding ways to tweak the old cliches.  The gratuitous fan service further takes you out of the movie and the inclusion of a surprise character from a previous installment is baffling and shoddily handled. 

Oh, and if you thought the characters in Prometheus were dumb, wait till you see this.  Heck, the people in this movie come perilously close to making the characters in AVP:  Requiem look like Harvard grads.  I can typically forgive idiocy in horror movies, but it’s hard to turn a blind eye when they are insufferable idiots like the ones found here. 

The best part of the film winds up being the most frustrating.  Without spoiling things, I’ll just say that trying to connect things back to Prometheus was an ambitious touch.  It’s just that it occurs at the eleventh hour, and there’s no way to properly flesh out the ideas it sets in motion.  In turn, we wind up with a finale that not only feels rushed and tacked on, but one that feels woefully underwhelming too.  (It tries to mix the goo of Prometheus with the oddball oddities of Resurrection with inept results.)

I will say the practical Alien effects are quite good.  It’s just a shame we never get to see much of the carnage it creates.  The Alien has always been a fascinating creature, mostly because of its life cycle.  With a script like this, it’s clear Romulus should’ve stayed in the incubation phase.