by Victoria Alexander
All its predecessors were staffed by scientists and military. Here a group of homeless, orphan teenagers are stuck on a dismal mining colony on a hellhole planet. They have no skills. They decide to capture ROMULUS, an abandoned ship. Except for the charisma-free, faceless cast, it is a terrific movie.
Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is stuck on Jackson’s Star, a dead-end mining colony. She has six more years working in the mines before she can leave. Rain is hopeless but does have a brother-android, Andy (David Jonson), who is an early, useless model found years ago in the trash by Rain’s father. Andy has a few technical abilities, yet his robot machinery is twitchy. Some of their friends plan to get off their sunless, dead-end planet by somehow piloting their worn-out ship – their Millennium Falcon - to land on a derelict craft and use the pods onboard to flee to Yvaga, a planet with sunshine. This colony’s wealthy go to BLADE RUNNER’S Los Angeles for a well-deserved vacation. How did these kids get all those technical experiences to navigate this mission?
The colony does not look like it takes care of its children’s education or give them vocational training.
I had pre-ordered (at an obscene added online expense) to see ALIEN: ROMULUS in a Dolby ATMOS theater in my favorite seat. The row was filled up. The guy sitting next to me waited through 24 minutes of trailers before opening a package of candy as soon as ROMULUS started. Every time he went to get a candy from the package – I was shocked how much candy was in the package for a two-hour plus movie - the sound drove me crazy! Luckily, I had a container of soda, and I spent most of the movie flipping the cover constantly making an enormous amount of noise. I even started talking out loud.
My ticket ended up costing $19.43. That is a lot of money to spend for a 4:00 pm screening to sit next to a distracting stranger.
I will not tell you what I planned to do if he left his seat to go to the bathroom.
So now I have to see ALIEN: ROMULUS again. I missed some of the early dialogue.
The offender did try to take a piece of candy from the package when a big loud scene happened. I chose to make noise when there was dialogue.
I know all candy-eating movie-goers hate me.
With little spacecraft exploring, the group does land on the Renaissance. There are two areas of the ship now considered space junk, Romulus and Remus – named after the Roman twins who founded Rome.
The group discover that Renaissance is headed straight for the mining planet. Even though their adopted planet will be destroyed, luckily, they only intend to spend 30 minutes looking for the pods and jetting someplace with a sun. Too bad they can’t contact the planet’s inhabitants.
An annoying voice ticks off the time remaining before total destruction. But, as usual, the group separate and are easily picked off by Xenomorph’s army of hungry big bugs.
Director and co-screenwriter Fred Álvarez had a young audience directive, so there is absolutely nothing scientific here and the heroine, Rain, is just along to look after her brother. She doesn’t have a clue about spacecraft design, killing techniques or even has a survival instinct.
It reminds me of the famous line from ALIENS. Private Frost: “What the hell are we supposed to use, man, harsh language?”
Going against the franchise’s thematic structure of a terrific supporting cast, Rain and Andy’s friends are all just place holders. See ROMULUS and name one additional character other than Rain and Andy as you leave the theater.
Rain is no successor to Ellen Ridley or Elizabeth Shaw. Everyone in ALIEN: ROMULUS just stumbled into the Xenomorph’s lair.
ALIEN: ROMULUS also dispenses with the human and android villains. There is no Ash, Carter Burke, Meredith Vickers or David/Walter. ALIEN: ROMULUS has no human villains. There are new big crawling bug aliens alongside the real stars of the film, the Xenomorphs.
I miss Michael Fassbender.
Since the filmmakers did not find Rain and Andy’s friends interesting, I’ll do the same and ignore them. They wander around the Romulus and even when faced with danger, are not prepared. They are the ones to go first, leaving Rain and Andy to fight the titular creatures.
But then a genuine scene-stealer arrives and Rain puts Nostromo’s android’s brain chip into Andy. Now Andy is transformed into a remarkable Xenomorph fighter, with an upper-class British accent and a virile attitude. Rain tags along. Andy stands up straight.
Tiny Rain is lucky she didn’t trip over a Romulus wire and fall into a Xenomorph’s mouth. Without reading the instruction manual, Rain is able to use a huge super weapon she finds in Romulus’s rubble.
Because the gang have not bothered to research the Romulus history and waltz around the deserted ship without a care in the world, when each of the nameless victims die, who cares?
The screenwriters, Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues give ALIEN fans the alien inside a human bursting birthing scene. But then there is a twist – the alien has acquired some human DNA and it is “Bundle-Fly time” aboard the Romulus.
The terror and horror never lets up and the stars – the Xenomorphs - have more close-ups, screen time and more personality than Rain and Andy.
The ALL is Mind; The Universe is Mental.”
Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer Critic.
For a complete list of Victoria Alexander's movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes go to:
Contributing to: FilmsInReview: http://www.filmsinreview.com
Member of Las Vegas Film Critics Society
Personal email: victoria.alexander.lv@gmail.com