‘Alien: Romulus’ Review: Action-Horror Update Is a Gloriously Fun Mashup of ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’

There’s a dark joke (or tragic irony, depending on one’s cynicism) nestled within the appearance of a familiar character in “Alien: Romulus.” The move is a dubious creative decision for the sake of that sprinkle of fan service we’ve come to expect in a reboot. Whatever’s best for the company (i.e. Walt Disney Corp.), indeed.

But this, perhaps, is unfair to “Alien: Romulus” — ultimately a good ol’ fashioned romp — and to its predecessors as a whole. Amid the ongoing gold rush of reboots and revamps, the world of “Alien” has remained a bit of a remarkable creature, so to speak. It’s a franchise whose each iteration (discounting the “Alien vs. Predator” spinoffs) has largely made an earnest and interesting effort to reinvent itself and contend with and expand its mythology.

You can say that about the jump between the two stone-cold classics of “Alien” and “Aliens,” when Ridley Scott’s simple but brilliantly elegant opus of space horror was retrofitted by James Cameron into a pure, large-scale ‘80s action blockbuster. You can say that about Scott’s return to the franchise with the more recent philosophical prequels 2012’s “Prometheus” and 2017’s “Alien: Covenant,” both of which have, with time, read only more fascinatingly ambitious and thematically complex (particularly the unfairly maligned “Covenant”).

“Alien: Romulus,” then, is different in its spiritual aims to go back to the franchise’s roots, and somewhat appropriately so, as a standalone work that is sandwiched in between the events of “Alien” and “Aliens.” Rather than crafting its own mythos, it mostly takes those first two films, remixes them, and splits the difference. The result is a movie that doesn’t have the narrative gravitas or grandiose themes of Scott’s prequels — but that’s not really the point here. The point, and the success of the venture, rests mostly in having a whole hell of a lot of fun.

The opening of “Romulus,” directed by and co-written by Fede Álvarez (“Evil Dead,” “Don’t Breathe”) immediately hearkens back to “Alien,” both stylistically and narratively. There’s the similar technical whir and sleepy awakening of a spaceship’s computers and a mimicking of the look of the 1979 film’s opening credits (though not the same iconic title reveal). And we pick up right where the first film ended, as the wreckage from the original’s obliterated spacecraft is picked apart and a fossilized rock is brought aboard a space station.

What exactly happens next is at first unclear, only that, naturally, things go awry and the ravaged space station is eventually found floating over a space mining colony. Hoping to escape a desolate future on the colony, a group of young explorers (the unwitting youth of the movie’s core crew, a distinct shift from all past films, immediately lends a looser, purer air of fun to the film) climb aboard the station looking for spare cryo-chambers. As one might expect, they encounter alien life in the process.

It’s in this premise that the film returns to the original’s self-contained simplicity, as a story of simply battling for survival on a spaceship. But perhaps the most satisfying throwback is in Alvarez’s creative approach to the alien itself.

Over the years, each subsequent “Alien” film has relied increasingly on improved special effects to highlight the killer instincts and physical details of the “perfect organism” that is the xenomorph alien. But here, the alien is often just seen in closeups, shadows and silhouettes. It’s a creature ostensibly made from practical effects rather than pure computer generation, a striking approach to mirror a look that in the original film was necessitated by limitation, but here, induces old-school terror, in all of its sharp-cut glimpses and more tactile, rough-edged physicality.

Elsewhere, though, Alvarez has crafted a large-scale cinematic spectacle (seeing it in IMAX is a theatrical delight) with a space opera’s sense of visual immersion and an often dynamic punch to the action choreography. At times, it has the indulgently visceral kick of pulpy video game fun, as if we’ve put on a VR headset and are just here to get the cheap, delicious thrills of kicking some alien ass. That feels truest in the film’s second half that has “Aliens” written all over it. Imagery alludes to the final act of Cameron’s blockbuster, and it’s here that Cailee Spaeny, as the film’s protagonist Rain, feels like the first updated embodiment of Eileen Ripley.

It’s not an easy task, particularly for an actress who just last year personified the delicate solitude of Priscilla Presley, to fill in the shoes of one of cinema’s most hardened heroines. But Rain’s arc is helped by another borrowed device: just as Ripley is forced to become a hero to protect the young girl Newt, Rain does so to protect her brother, Andy (David Jonsson), a synthetic non-human.

Andy, though, shifts into another character over the course of the film, his directive overridden by the microchip of another synthetic, and Jonsson is a nimble shape-shifter across both roles. Rain’s relationship to Andy is meant to make up the film’s heart and extends the franchise’s consistent conversation around the robot-human equation, but the movie is better for leaving that mostly to plot points rather than serious intellectual questioning.

The focus, again, is to pack the alien punch in an old fashioned way, with some new updates. In Álvarez’s final flourish, the film finally forges its own identity, pushing the franchise into a territory that it has yet to go in before. It might not stick the landing — and in some ways it feels altogether silly — but the twist plays so well into the gloriously indulgent mashup play that the film runs on that, by then, you’re just happy to be on the rollercoaster ride.

A 20th Century Studios release, Alien: Romulus opens exclusively in theaters on Aug. 16.

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