They aren’t sympathetic, these Aliens. I suppose that comes as no shock; their meandering path along this adventure we call life begins with murder. Is this their “congenital sin?” When is Alien Jesus gonna pop out of somebody’s chest and remove the stain of Alien sin? And when are humans gonna learn never to set foot anywhere, huh? Is working in the mines really worse than being torn apart by an asshole life form? Yeah, probably.
This particular Alien adventure is all about Gen Z and their introduction to the biggest jerks in the universe. Oh, you think Boomers are bad? Well, you’re not wrong … but wait. There are worse things in the universe … apparently.
Everyone wants off Jackson’s Star. It’s a mining planet 65 light years from Earth and 9 light years from the nearest Hooters. The residents work in the [fill in relevant thing to be dug up here] mines all day, which can last forever because the place never gets any sunlight. Seriously. Never. Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her synthetic brother Andy (David Jonsson) want off. The company just saw its shadow, in turn rewriting Rain’s contract to include 6 more years of winter. To be fair, if no one ever sees the sun, we don’t actually know how long a year is on Jackson’s Star. Doesn’t matter; Rain has had enough of this downpour.
One of the curious things about this film is the most notable character is Andy, the robot family member (for lack of a better description). David Jonsson has to switch personalities completely every 45 minutes or so depending on which chip was last inserted into “his” brain. -Jonsson does a damn good job, btw- For whatever reason, Andy starts the film with a brain like Lennie in Of Mice and Men – unsure, hesitant, simple, and really into dad jokes. This film might be worth it alone for the Andy upgrade in Act II.
Pissed off by the company and wanting off the dead rock, friends corral Rain and Andy to be part of their coup: they are going to leave. They have a ship capable of such a journey. Problem is nowhere worth getting to is closer than 9 light years, so they’ll need cryostasis pods for the trip and maybe a few snacks; the nearest 7-11 is also light years away). The former can be found on an abandoned space station just out of orbit. The station is divided into two halves: the Romulus and the Remus – hence, our title.
All the kids have to do is board the station and steal the pods. The place has been abandoned, so easy-peasy, right? Well, turns out we’re in a horror film. Once discovered, the pods don’t have sufficient energy to get the kids where they need to be, so our heroes gotta find a power source. There’s a refrigerated cryo-chamber on board. Sure, you can find power there, just try not to revive the frozen 
facehuggers next to the microwave; you know how touchy those things get when you wake them up after a few decades.
Oops. Now you’ve got local Armageddon. Was it worth it?
I should point here that Aliens are still top-10 movie villains. Lethal at birth, accelerated growth, acid blood, larger than humans, spiky tails, and all black with unnerving tongue-thrusting power. They are all kinds of nightmare material … and they’re not dumb, either. And the only thing these f***ers care about is killing and procreating, so every human spared is simply waiting for their own facehugger nightmare to happen. Hence, almost anything with Alien in the title is gonna be fair horror material.
I don’t know how many Alien films there have been. I could count them, but I don’t want to. Point here is Alien: Romulus was a good one and might have been considered superlative were it the only one on the books. The problem is we’ve seen this. We’ve seen it a lot. The faces and dilemmas are new and recycled at the same time. So, yes, Alien: Romulus was quite thrilling, but don’t expect me to throw it a parade.
There was once an orphan girl named Rain
Yearning to unshackle her employment chain
So she hopped on a freighter
But two hours later
She has a dilemma somewhere north of insane
Rated R, 119 Minutes
Director: Fede Alvarez
Writer: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues, Dan O’Bannon
Genre: Our screwed future
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Aliens
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The kind of people who enforce safety regulations
