August 20, 2024
Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her android brother Andy (David Jonsson) worked as slaves for Weyland-Yutani in a gloomy mining colony called Jackson's Star. When Rain's contract was extended against her will, she got together with her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) and his pregnant sister Kay (Isabela Merced), their cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and his girlfriend Navarro (Aileen Wu), who were plotting to escape the colony.
Their plan involved getting their hauler craft Corbelan to an abandoned spacecraft to steal its cryostasis chambers essential for their escape. They needed Andy to be there so they can connect with the computer systems on the ship. However, while working on the chambers, they unwitingly revived frozen quick slithery creatures which attacked them. One of these alien monsters latched onto Navarro's face and they could not get it off.
Cailee Spaeny is on a roll of a broad variety of lead roles, as Priscilla Presley in "Priscilla" last year to an idealistic young journalist in "Civil War" earlier this year. Here, the close sense of kinship of Spaeny's Rain to David Johnson's android Andy was the heart of this film, and the two of them sold it. Johnson's role was more complex, since Andy's thought processing depended on the chip inserted into him, adding to the tension around his character.
The events of "Alien: Romulus" (already the 9th film in the "Alien" franchise) happen about 20 years after of the original "Alien" (Ridley Scott, 1979) set in the year 2122, and 37 years before its sequel "Aliens" (James Cameron, 1986) set in the year 2179. To appreciate "Romulus" better, it is advised to watch at least the first "Alien" to be able to recognize the references about it, and how this new movie practically hits all the beats of the original. An iconic line from "Aliens" was also thrown into the mix to delight fans.
Watching the first "Alien" first will familiarize new viewers with the deadly alien monsters of this franchise -- the eight-tentacled, tight-binding facehuggers and the chest-bursting, rapidly growing xenomorphs, which looked more terrifying in director Fede Alvarez red-lit confines. Another plus was recognizing the face of android science officer Ash (the late Ian Holm) from "Alien" in this edition's Weyland-Yutani-loyal android science officer Rook. 7/10
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