Main cast: Cailee Spaeny (Marie Raines “Rain” Carradine), David Jonsson (Andy), Archie Renaux (Tyler Harrison), Isabela Merced (Kay Harrison), Spike Fearn (Bjorn), and Aileen Wu (Navarro)
Director: Fede Alvarez

Well, after the not-so-triumphant attempt to reboot the Alien franchise with eye-rolling mumbo-jumbo retcons, someone decided to reboot things again with Alien: Romulus.

This one is set 10 years after Alien so yes, it’s another prequel or whatever that refuses to move past Alien: Resurrection. They then have that same fellow that rebooted Evil Dead to do this, because how hard can that be, anyway. Just like he did with that other movie, Fede Alvarez just slaps on gore and tired clichés onto something that is basically a reskinned greatest hits compilation of the Alien franchise and then calls it a day. 

Oh, and this movie introduces what is basically a vaccine for people infected by facehuggers. That’s nice, but why isn’t this mentioned in the movies set after this? That’s the problem with all these upstarts using old IPs to skinwalk their own stories that they want to tell. Every new Alien movie has a new alien, a new gimmick, a new McGuffin, and tons of new tech and information that somehow vanish by the time Aliens roll around.

At the rate things are going, we’ll soon have an Alien multiverse where Weyland-Yutani merges with Disney and… wait, that’s too meta, right?

Okay, the plot. We are at the Jackson’s Star colony in LV-410, another planet because Weyland-Yutani controls the universe or something, where it’s always dark like it’s that planet in Pitch Black. Sadly, without the monsters or anything else that made that movie a superior watch.

We meet colonist girlboss Marie Raines “Rain” Carradine that is annoyed when Weyland-Yutani has extended her work contract. So, she drags her ragtag DEI buddies — making me wonder if Weyland-Yutani is racist for sending all these people to a pitch-dark planet — her ex Tyler, Tyler’s pregnant dramatic plot device sister Kay, Bjorn, and Bjorn’s adopted sister Navarro as well as some android Andy that Rain considers her brother.

Don’t worry if it’s annoying to keep track of who’s who, because it’s obvious that the girl boss is going to final girl the whole thing, and the rest are just waiting for their turn to get killed.

So, these people have a plan:

• Steal a hauler
• Get to an abandoned Weyland-Yutani station
• Steal cryostasis equipment there
• Cryosleep away to a new home

Yay! Simple, right? Naturally, the station is full of hibernating xenomorphs, and things soon quickly go wrong.

Hey, you may be asking. Where did the xenomorphs come from? Well, you see, the folks at Weyland-Yutani have reverse-engineered things and through plot magic, they are able to breed their own cute little killer aliens now. How cute, because now the lore is even more FUBAR.

• If they can now make their own xenomorphs, then the entire plot in Aliens — to secretly capture a live one for more research — makes zero sense.
• In fact, from the way the officers interrogated Ripley in that movie, they didn’t even know much about the xenomorphs, much less be able to make one or twenty in their labs.

What on earth? Did Mr Alvarez and his co-screenwriter even watch the movies, or did they just read the Wikipedia plot summaries?

Anyway, I supposed that there are some nice things I can say about this movie.

The set looks nice, although once again, everything is so bright that there is no sense of fear or claustrophobia, and the tech level displayed seems a few centuries ahead of those seen in Alien and even Aliens.

There is some gore, although most of the scenes seem to be watered-down throwback to “Remember this?” moments of the previous pre-Prometheus Alien movies. I’m surprised Disney, which owns the IP now, even let that pass considering the PG-crap they pulled with Alien: Earth. They even took a leaf from Alien: Resurrection for some human-alien hybrid thing, except the Newborn is far cuter and memorable while this one is just an ugly lumpy goop. 

I suppose Cailee Spaeny isn’t too bad, although her character has very little memorable traits aside from “I’ve uncomfortably close to my android” and the tired old girl boss trope of being able to do anything and everything right because girl boss, on top of having obvious plot armor.

The people that keep making these sequels seem to not get that Ellen Ripley isn’t a girl boss, but rather, someone that has to keep adapting and fighting to survive each movie. Ripley has PTSD, she lost people dear to her, and she even lost her life. The one time she fits the definition of a girl boss is in Alien: Resurrection, but even that makes sense as she is a super strong clone with xenomorph DNA and barely any human emotion. 

All these “I am just so naturally capable, wooo!” final girls are just sad wannabes with barely any personality because they just don’t get Ripley or even the Alien franchise. 

In the end, this movie is an adequate if forgettable and by the numbers space monster movie, but a pretty dire Alien movie as it continues the tradition of the newer Alien shows of dismantling the lore even further and making everything a garbled mess without any respect or understanding of the IP, while adding nothing noteworthy to the franchise. I know, what else is new right? 

Watch this on streaming if one must, but Alien fans should do their best to pretend that this is a standalone movie that has nothing to do with the franchise to get the most enjoyment out of it.