Alien: Romulus

Rated R • Theaters

One of science fiction’s most influential movies is 1979’s Alien. Not only did its release pave the way for other dystopian space-faring films, it spawned eight more movies in the franchise, each of them offering variations on humanity’s clash with a super-developed creature in outer space.

The newest movie, Alien: Romulus, takes place between the events of the original movie and its sequel Aliens (1986), and it pays homage to those two films, which are widely considered the best in the franchise.

Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her band of friends hope to escape their dead-end future on a mining colony by stealing fuel from an abandoned space station and traveling to another planet. Rain brings her loyal android Andy (David Jonsson) to help find the fuel, but it’s not long before the abandoned ship begins to give up its deep and dark secrets.

Rain and her friends locate the fuel, but the aliens soon scuttle into the picture. This dramatic turn is well-trod ground in the franchise: human beings on a practical mission, only to be overwhelmed by the insidious and awful presence of fast-reproducing life forms.

Stylistically Alien: Romulus follows its predecessors, but the movie’s young cast gives it the feeling of a teen horror film. Director Fede Alvarez shows in gruesome detail the aliens’ creative ways to kill and maim.

Rain echoes Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, and she is heroic in her
role. The atmosphere conveys a vintage look from the future with
whirring computers and oversized knobs. Overall, the visual effects are
satisfying, minus an ill-considered AI-generated cameo. The musical
score by Benjamin Wallfisch is top-notch.

Romulus, like the other Alien movies, poses familiar questions. Faced with a new, terrible enemy, should your original mission change? To whom are you beholden in a crisis? Is it the corporation? Your friends? Your android assistant? Or just yourself?

These questions are more relevant today than they were in 1979 now that artificial intelligence increasingly looms large in how we learn, make decisions, and organize our lives. When threats come, perhaps we will be tempted to relinquish those decisions to a machine. Or will we stay the course and celebrate our God-given humanity?

I wanted Romulus to engage this theme more seriously, but the characters lacked the gravitas of the wizened crew in the original movie, which makes this young group of friends seem even more helpless.