Rain and her android friend Andy, who she pretends is her brother to keep his secret safe, are stuck on a filthy mining colony. They’ve been dreaming of escaping to a sunny planet, but their plans fall apart when the shady Weyland-Yutani corporation pulls some dirty tricks. With no other options, they go along with their friend Tyler’s crazy plan: stealing cryo pods from a spooky, nearly destroyed space station that’s just floating there in space.

This station is split into two sections, Romulus and Remus. It’s about to crash into some planet ring or whatever. It’s supposedly empty, but they still find remnants of an android and those creepy-as-heck creatures that took out the crew.

Now this movie is like Alien’s reunion tour but with a Disney flag waving overhead for the first time. Fede Álvarez goes for that gritty B-Movie vibe, though he mixes in tons of nods to past Alien flicks which ends up making it feel like fan service instead of something entirely fresh.

“Alien: Romulus” mostly strings together pieces from previous Alien films. While Álvarez cooks up a few cool tries at storytelling and visuals, he ends up feeling like he’s playing nostalgia top hits rather than something totally unique. However, one interesting angle—and kinda fresh—is how everyone deals with our android dude Andy. Props to David Jonsson too; he’s been great on TV and nails his big screen moment here! And then there’s Rain…
Alright, so here’s the scoop: Andy is super close to her father, and now that he’s gone, Andy means everything to her. He’s practically family. The thing is, she’s afraid to tell him that if they go to this new planet they’re aiming for, he’d basically be retired from duty there. Now, one of the other crew members isn’t a fan of Andy at all. To them, he stands for the big corporate machine that took their mom away and made them despise all androids.

But get this: Andy’s crucial for their mission because only he—a Weyland-Yutani product—can unlock certain parts of the orbiting station they need access to. Plus, in a weird twist, Andy ends up getting taken over by a company module that boosts his abilities but also changes what he’s programmed to do.

Now, picture Prometheus and Alien: Covenant with their focus on androids—that’s kinda what’s going on here too. But it’s different because it really digs into how people feel about him and dives into the whole corporate vibe that’s always been part of Alien’s story universe. By the way, Álvarez does something wild by bringing Ian Holm back digitally as this creepy onboard android figure from way back. Normally, doing stuff like that feels kinda tacky—but it works here! This android is pretty busted-up looking anyway; he’s not supposed to act human-like at all really.

And then there’s Alien: Romulus switching things up again in act two—our crew finds themselves smack in front of an xenomorph nest—which shifts things into James Cameron territory for sure… There are some other twists and turns coming up too!
So here’s the deal with this movie. It’s borrowing a bunch from “Prometheus” and, especially towards the end, it gives off serious vibes from “Alien: Resurrection.” The director even talked about pulling some ideas from the video game “Alien: Isolation,” like how the ship’s phones and sudden twists mix things up.

For most of the film, things flow pretty well. But then, it stretches out this last confrontation way longer than needed. It feels like they padded things with an extra fight that’s kinda overdone—it mirrors a scene from Scott’s movie but drags on. They really could have kept that for another flick instead of extending “Alien: Romulus,” which shines in being straightforward. Plus, sometimes there are just too many close-ups with the aliens growling or drooling. It leaves these gaps where people magically figure out how to escape the xenomorphs.

Overall though, it shakes off all that heavy drama we’ve seen since the third film—and those head-scratching crossovers with Predator weren’t great either. This revisit tries to bring back the original flair of “Alien,” which is a nice change of pace. Maybe it’s not completely new and fresh, more like using an air conditioner for recycling air—but hey, it’s cooler than nothing! Probably would’ve been sharper if they’d rebooted it more like they did with “Prey” for Predator.
Oh, man, so this movie has some fresh stuff going on! Álvarez does a pretty good job with it. And Cailee Spaeny? She might not be the fierce warrior like Ripley was, but she still holds her own and does a decent job.