‘Alien: Romulus’ Review: Nasty Surprises Lurk In The Dark Corners Of Fede Álvarez’s Faithful But Inventively Tense Sequel
deadline.comThe seventh instalment in the increasingly aimless Alien franchise is better than it has any right to be, a genuinely thoughtful reimagining that pays stylish homage to the one-two punch packed by Ridley Scott and James Cameron in 1979 and 1986 but adds in some inventively nasty surprises of its own.
Sigourney Weaver is nowhere in sight, and Cailee Spaeney might seem, at first glance, to be an unlikely successor, but the Priscilla star certainly earns her stripes by the end of Alien: Romulus’ tight and deceptively well-judged two-hour running time.
Ditching, for the time being, all the boring conceptual non-sequiturs that flooded in after Alien 3 — the creationist story of the xenomorphs and the ongoing soap opera of the Wayland-Yutani Corporation, with its airy-fairy plans to use extraterrestrial DNA for… whatever — Alien: Romulus sets out its stall roughly midway in the 57-year gap between the events of the first movie and the second.
An ominous but slightly underwhelming opening sequence sets the scene if not the tone, with the wreckage of the Nostromo being investigated by a space probe, which scoops up what appears to be a giant fossil bearing the sinister, skeletal hallmarks of Swiss artist H.R.
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