“Alien: Romulus” gives hugging a bad name. The scorpion-like, fast-moving creatures are the real stars of this film which is low on character development, but high on action and body count.

The events of “Alien: Romulus” takes place after the 1979 “Alien” and before the 1986 “Aliens.”  

Alien (1979)

In “Alien,” a commercial space tug called Nostromo is returning to Earth with a seven-member crew. The crew is in stasis. The ship’s computer, Mother (voiced by Helen Horton), receives a transmission coming from a nearby derelict alien spaceship. The transmission was a warning, but Mother only deciphers this after a team has been inside the spaceship where a chamber of eggs is discovered by Executive Office Kane (John Hurt). Kane is quickly introduced to the face hugger. Warrant Office Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) doesn’t want to bring the unconscious Kane on board, but Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) overrides her. Ash attempts to remove the creature, but the creature’s “blood” is acidic and can quickly eat through the ship. Although the creature “dies” and Kane awakens, he later convulses and an alien creature bursts from his chest. He dies and our horror begins. The creature quickly grows into a very tall alien form (Bolaji Badejo in his solo acting credit) with impressive sets of teeth.

Ripley will later discover that Ash is an android and was ordered by the company to bring the alien back for study. The crew themselves were considered expendable. 

In the end, only Ripley and the ship cat, Jones, survive. Ripley puts herself and Jones in stasis and heads back to earth. I guess that makes Ripley a single cat lady. 

“Alien” was written by Dan O’Bannon (based on a story by O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett) and directed by Ridley Scott.

Aliens

Ellen Ripley had been in stasis for 57 years on the escape shuttle after the alien creature destroyed the rest of the crew and she escaped the ship Nostromo. In her debriefing with Weyland-Yutani Corporation, her employers, the company seems skeptical of her claims about eggs on a ship at exomoon LV-426.

That exomoon is now the site of a terraforming colony, but the company has lost contact with the colony. Ripley is asked by the company representative Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) to join the Colonial Marines led by Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope) on the spaceship Sulaco to investigate the colony.  Gorman is an inexperienced commanding officer and the ship’s crew includes an android, Bishop (Lance Henriksen). 

In the end, although initially distrustful of Bishop, Ripley fights the alien queen, aided by Bishop and Hicks. Ripley and Bishop save the lone survivor of the colony, a young girl named Newt (Carrie Henn). Ripley, corporal Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn),  Newt and Bishop survive. 

Alien: Romulus

According to legend, Romulus was the founder and first king of Rome. He had a twin brother, Remus, and they were sons of Rhea Silvia and the god Mars. Rhea was supposed to be a Vestal virgin, but she did get pregnant and the king, Amulius, condemned her twins, his grandnephews, to death in the Tiber. They were supposedly then found and raised by a wolf until a shepherd and his wife took them in and raised them. Romulus and Remus grow up, kill their grand uncle and restore their grandfather to the throne. Remus dies, how depends upon what version you’re reading.  Romulus then goes on to found Rome and become its first king. That would seem to mean that “Alien: Romulus” is a new beginning but something old will be sacrificed. 

In “Alien: Romulus,” the legend is represented by an abandoned ship that is separated into two parts: Romulus and Remus. When we initially see it, the researchers there have found their mission target and retrieved a large black object. We can’t see the faces of the people, but we do feel something is wrong and the computer’s name also can be pronounced “Mother.” 

In this installment of the Alien franchise, we’ve left the corporate world and influential people for the downtrodden–no scientists or bureaucrats. We find ourselves slumming it with a young white woman, Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny), and her “brother,” Andy (David Jonsson). Andy is a defective android programmed by Rain’s father to act as her brother. His prime directive is to do what’s best for Rain. 

Rain is a miner on a company-owned space colony, Jackson’s Star Mining Colony, that uses indentured slavery to keep their operation going. Rain had just earned her way out, but now, due to company considerations, she’ll have to work another five or six years. Rain’s father and mother died, likely due to all the new illnesses that plague the population of workers. Those who go below ground use old technology, a literal canary to measure the breathable air.  I thought this was going to be a plague-related tale, but disease is only a small detail in the director Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues’ script. 

Rain (which is too close to Rey for my mind not to conjure the Star Wars character up with every  mention) dreams of leaving this dark planet of forever night and go somewhere there is an actual sun one can see, Yvaga. She intends to take her brother with her. 

Andy becomes a necessary player in a plan hatched by Rain’s ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux), his secretly pregnant sister Kay (Isabela Merced), their cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and Bjorn’s girlfriend Navarro (Aileen Wu). This crew plans to scavenge at an abandoned space station (Romulus/Remus) to find both cryonic stasis chambers and fuel for a trip to the new home: the aforementioned Yvaga. The plan needs an android to open access to the various rooms. They offer Rain space, but not Andy and Bjorn hates androids.

Flying to the station on a mining hauler, the Corbelan, initially it is only the men plus android  who board. They encounter horrific things including a half destroyed android. Things go wrong quickly when they enter a room where those face huggers are. Once these crazy critters are released, the women become involved to rescue the men. Rain installs a chip from a downed Romulus android into Andy so he can access more secure areas, and she also reboots a half demolished android, a science officer, who will be eerily familiar.

Ian Holm died in 2020 at the age of 88, but is back (via a voice and facial performance by Daniel Betts)  to play an android known here as Rook. Holm had previously played the android Ash in the 1979 “Alien.” Remember, Ash was a villainous android, serving the company’s interests. Will Rook be villainous as well? Will he lure Andy to the dark side? 

As you’ve probably guess, this crew of young people will not all survive their encounters with the xenomorphs in their various stages. This is an exhilarating ride, but the plot has holes large enough to swallow an exomoon and the characters here are woefully underdeveloped. The two most complex characters are the androids and using hair for characterization (no disrespect to the hair and makeup crew) hardly counts at all. 

One wonders why no one else has noticed this abandoned space station and its valuable fuel source. Then there’s the more practical considerations. How did these people become so educated in high tech if they are indentured slave workers? How did Navarro become a pilot? Even learning to drive a car and maintaining it costs money. How much more so flying an object into space. Does the colony have no air space control? If there is something valuable up there, why did no one from the higher echelons raid it long ago? 

On the why-should-we-care-about-them problem, the writers Álvarez and Sayagues rely heavily on attractiveness of this new set of characters. I did, unfortunately, correctly predict who would be killed first. There is a recurring theme about leaving behind someone or something and what could possibly justify it. It begins with Rain and Andy and then repeats throughout. One could think “Nemo Resideo,” but this crew are obviously not on a military mission. 

I cannot say that I totally buy into this franchise. The first film I saw as a college student, and I laughed. My first thought was: How does our friend brush its teeth. My second was: What does the tooth fairy think? I believe my then-boyfriend hoped I would be scared and clingy. Life is full of disappointments.

I would not return to the franchise until I was in my first grad school program at UCLA. Urged by a friend, right before finals, we saw a double-bill: “Alien” and “Aliens.” When I asked why, he said watching Sigourney Weaver battle the xenomorph and win, makes viewers feel like they can do anything. 

While Spaeny does convey mixed emotions well enough, she doesn’t have that raw, gritty determination that Weaver projected.  Instead, it is Jonsson’s Andy that is the emotional center of this film.  Jonsson’s characterizations of Andy as he is programmed and reprogrammed are sharply defined and the most nuanced character that this script allows. 

“Alien: Romulus” is a thrilling ride that doesn’t inspire as the first two movies did. There’s a lot of skittering and scary facehuggers in this one and, in the Alien franchise, hugging is a fear inducing act that results in DNA nightmares. 

Seen in IMAX.