Panic Station — Alien: Romulus
Okay, folks, time to get back on track. I’ve worked my ass off, got sick, got better, and had my first vacation in over a decade. August has been weird to say the least, but as we approach the autumn months and Awards Season, I’m turning on the afterburners and getting things back where they belong. As ever, I thank you all for bearing with me, and apologize for the relative lack of content. This is always an odd month in the cinema calendar, so it’s hard to budget my time, attention, and life priorities, but I’m back in the proverbial saddle and ready for something new.
Or at least, something new- ish. In what has become a creative wasteland this month, the only tentpole release from the studios that has really gained any traction is Alien: Romulus, the latest installment of Ridley Scott’s most famed franchise (he takes an Executive Producer credit here, leaving the directing to Fede Álvarez of Don’t Breathe and the 2013 Evil Dead reboot). Billed as the best entry in the series since Aliens and attaining “Certified Fresh” status with an 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, this was sold as the film that would break the longstanding losing streak that began with Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection and hit rock bottom with the likes of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Maybe, just maybe, we’d have a sequel worthy of its source material, with genuine scares and intriguing science fiction concepts, giving audiences that oh so satisfying hit of nostalgia while also creating novel possibilities going forward.
But like the original Alien itself, the surface reports only hint at the death trap that awaits. Is this is a good movie? Yes. Is it a great movie? No. Is it the best since Ripley fought the Xenomorph Queen? Probably, but only by default given everything else on offer. To be clear, this is a somewhat fun and very well made addition to the canon, but there are glaring flaws that you may or may not be able to get past. If nothing else, all the praise should be taken with requisite salt (or acid blood), as a closer look at the critiques on RT do show recommendations, but also tepid endorsements that render its score as a statistical anomaly. Normally 80% means we’re looking at something approaching the spectacular. A perusal of a lot of the pull quotes reveals more of an “eh, it’s alright” conclusion, which is about where I sit.
Set between the events of the first two movies, the story begins on a distant colonial planet, where an orphaned woman given the totally subtle name of Rain (Cailee Spaeny) has spent years working farmland on a world that gets no sunshine (how does no one have terrible rickets?), so that she can eventually apply to the Weyland-Yutani corporation for release from her contract in order to travel to a much sunnier, calmer planet with her adoptive android brother Andy (David Jonsson), where they hope to continue living their agrarian lifestyle in more hospitable conditions. However, as fans of the franchise are well aware, the Company is evil as fuck, and decides that a “lack of workers” means that Rain’s required hours were doubled the moment she cleared them, and that she’ll have to work in a mining facility for the next several years, further cementing the on-the-nose nature of her moniker. Meanwhile, Andy, who was reprogrammed by Rain’s late father to have the sole directive of doing what’s best for her, suffers from side effects of the amateur tinkering, and as such is dimwitted and filled to the brim with dad jokes. Still, he wants the same thing Rain wants, which is life on a peaceful farm. Essentially, our two leads are presenting us with Of Mice and Men in space. We can all guess how that will turn out.
Heartbroken, Rain meets up with some of her friends, including Tyler (Archie Renaux), who pilots a small ship. He has discovered a set of working cryogenic hibernation pods aboard the derelict station Romulus which orbits their ringed planet. The station has been abandoned for some time, and its orbit has decayed to the point that it will collide with the icy rings in about a month, destroying all equipment on board. He’s come up with a foolproof plan to sneak onto the station, grab the pods and some cryonic fuel, allowing himself, Rain, his pregnant sister Kay (Isabela Merced), cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Bjorn’s girlfriend Navarro (Aileen Wu) to escape to the very idyllic world that Rain wants to go to, after a six-year sleep in the pods of course. As an Android, Andy would watch over them during the trip, and then be discarded because this utopian world doesn’t allow replicants.
With nary a thought beyond Rain pointing out that what they’re doing is illegal, the whole group throws caution to the wind and goes to Romulus, certain that everything will be fine and they’ll be in and out in less than a few hours. Of course, we all know that won’t happen, because we’ve seen literally any movie before. As it turns out, the fuel cells were being used to keep several face-hugger eggs on ice, preventing them from hatching, and once they’re removed, before you can say, “Give us a cuddle,” Navarro has been implanted with a xenomorph, and the bloodbath ensues. By the way, that’s not a spoiler, since the trailers literally show Navarro using an x-ray device to find the alien gestating in her chest right before she collapses for the inevitable “birth.”
From here, it’s just a matter of time before everyone except Rain is picked off, and a question of how it’ll be done, which is deeply unsatisfying. I understand that adhering to a formula can be fun and effective at times, but it isn’t entertaining when it’s so obviously telegraphed. Give us some variety, some deviations from the norm, and maybe these kills could leave an impact. Think back to the original Alien. Why was Ellen Ripley the last one standing? It’s because she adapted to the situation, figured things out as she went, and proved herself to be a next-level badass. Why does Rain get to be the final girl? Because Cailee Spaeny is by a considerable margin the most famous actor in the cast (unless you were the one person who watched Dora and the Lost City of Gold and fell in love with Merced), she’s the first person we see, and she gets the sobby backstory. Everything after her and Andy’s introduction is just empty pathos or justification for how we’re going to dispense with our fodder. Navarro is an easy early victim because she has the least connection to Rain. Bjorn is marked for death because he has a bias against androids in a world where they are part of the service and society. Tyler’s fucked because this was his stupid plan, and everything that goes down is a direct result of no one actually taking a moment to figure out contingencies. Any reasonable amount of discussion about the logistics of this plan puts a complete stop to it, so we have to rely on our so-called heroes being actively stupid in order for any of the shit to go down. The only question mark is Kay, and that’s because we can shoehorn in the pregnancy angle as a parallel to the xenomorphs. When it’s that clear from the opening minutes what’s going to happen, it can still work, but you can’t in good faith advertise that you’re doing something original and scary. We’re not falling for it.
Once you go down that path, you’re left with fan service as the only option for engagement, and for the most part, this falls flat. The opening shot showing the debris of the Nostromo is helpful for establishing the timeline, but little else. Giving Rain a gun that colonial marines use is worthy of an eye roll, especially since she’s warned that it only has one charge of ammunition, yet they leave an entire other gun on the shelf without taking it for backup. There’s a scene where Andy kills an alien that’s attacking Rain and literally invokes the line from Aliens, “Get away from her, you bitch!” that had some in the audience laughing, others booing and muttering, “Come on,” and me actively shouting, “OH FUCK OFF!”
Worst of all, though is the addition of our verbal antagonist. This is a mild spoiler, but it’s one you need to be aware of before you fork over your money, because from a moral standpoint, I can’t endorse this. Aboard Romulus is the remnants of an android called Rook, voiced by Daniel Betts. His presence leads to some genuinely tense moments, as his memory chip is transferred to Andy to give him security access to different parts of the station, and even overrides his sweet, dumb nature, causing him to make cold, detached decisions for “the best interests of the Company.” This is incredibly cool, and it makes Jonsson’s performance the best of the bunch as he’s able to play to two extremes. However, rather than just having any random bifurcated android on the station, the VFX team used AI deepfakes to place the late Ian Holm’s face (Ash from the original Alien) onto this figure. To their credit, the production did get permission from Holm’s estate, and the effect is more convincing than when Rogue One did the same thing with Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher, but it’s still wrong, and should not be condoned with our dollars.
Think about it. How does this enhance your experience? If you’re a fan of the series, all you see is a cheap callback and the potential denigration of a great actor who can’t say no. If this is somehow your first foray into the franchise, you have no idea who Ash was, and therefore this inclusion has no meaning to you whatsoever. Clearly you can just have a different robot have the same unscrupulous programming and low-grade malevolence, so why not just cast a new actor? The earlier parts of the film already established how the synthetics work, right down to their milky fluids, so nothing would be lost on the viewer. Why do we have to go into the Uncanny Valley for the sake of a reference, especially at a time when AI is such a genuine threat to the industry that we just had two different strikes to prevent its use in replacing humans? At some point you have an ethical obligation to scrap those scenes, hire an actor for reshoots, and edit them in, or you’re actively part of the problem.
And it’s really a shame because while the story offers no real surprises, there are some really good production elements on display here. The cinematography is insane, making perfect use of bright neon lighting schemes and extremely clever camera movements. The set design is off the chart, turning the station into a living maze, a puzzle box of danger where death awaits in every corridor. The overall look is impractical, but it serves the thematic purpose to a tee. Apart from the Ian Holm deepfake and a weird creation in the climax, the visual effects are very strong indeed, worthy of Academy consideration. I particularly loved the sight of xenomorph acid blood floating in zero gravity and the glacial ice that makes up the planet’s rings, becoming ever more ominous as the station gets closer to impact. There’s an excellent mixture of practical effects, digital touches, and puppetry on the aliens that feels immersive and seamless. This creates a presentation where we all know these people are dead to rights, but it’s still exciting to watch. It almost makes up for the lack of narrative discipline, one-note performances, and the four different ending points that Álvarez refuses to opt for so we can all go home (I guess Holm’s face wasn’t the only thing taken from Lord of the Rings).
All of this results in a film that was advertised as one of the cinematic events of the summer, but in reality settles for being merely adequate. It had a very low bar to clear based on recent output, but there was so much more that could have been done. There could have been some actual ambiguity in the pecking order. There could have been some actual planning of this ill-fated voyage rather than making everyone an idiot right before their demise. There could have been actual new, winsome characters added to the canon, rather than a low-rent Ripley clone and an actual Ash clone.
For what it is, Alien: Romulus is fine, but nothing special, and the disappointment is that there were so many ways where it could have been, had Ridley Scott and Fede Álvarez not decided to play it safe and by the numbers. There was a much better film eager to burst through and renew interest in the franchise, but they were more concerned with references and callbacks rather than expanding on the creative wealth of decades past. Just like their characters, the emphasis was on doing something as quickly as possible with tunnel vision towards success without any real thought about how it would work or how it could go wrong. Because of that, we’re left with something mildly satisfying, but often dispiriting. In space, no one can hear you scream, but in an age of continued banking on IP, can anyone here on Earth hear the audience yawn?
Grade: B-
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Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on August 28, 2024.
