Alien: Romulus comments on corporate abuses while indulging in its own form of exploitation

This review contains spoilers.

Last year, in his documentary Pictures of Ghosts, Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho examined how cinema becomes a landscape for ghosts and phantoms. Through cinema, cities, pets and people can find life after death; a forgotten movie theatre, life under a dictatorship, a neighbour’s barking dog and a loving mother. New technologies also mean another kind of afterlife onscreen; one more undead than spectral. Actors like Carrie Fisher, Harold Ramis and Paul Walker posthumously appeared in films. It begs the question, what is the difference between a ghost and a zombie?

In Alien: Romulus, we see another similar resurrection. Taking place not long after the events of Alien (1979), residents of a sunless mining planet who see no hope of escape through legal means decide to hijack an abandoned ship. Little do they know that the spacecraft has become a giant incubation pod for xenomorph life. Yet, an equal threat is also present onboard: the torso of Ash, played by an AI approximation of  Ian Holm who died back in 2020. The “performance” is uncanny, certainly lending an additional layer of horror to the proceedings. The slightly off-kilter behaviours and expressions are excusable if only due to the character’s status as an artificial human who has been horribly mangled. 

One of the major themes of Alien: Romulus becomes the insidious way corporations devalue human dignity. Life becomes measured in terms of cost and reward. Life is expendable if it means saving the bottom line. The company’s desire to bring back the xenomorph DNA undeniably becomes a quest to transform people into immortal workers who need not suffer from old age, disease or even catastrophe. Immortality, in this case, is the promise of endless profit. As the film explodes with phallic, yonic and reproductive imagery (though, overall, Romulus lacks the texture of the best films of the series), we see a stark contrast between the organic horror of life and the endless drudge of corporate interests.

It makes the revival of Ian Holm all the more perturbing. The film seems to lack the self-awareness that it’s committing the same cardinal sin as the corporate villain. If the filmmakers are aware, perhaps it is merely that the conventions of Hollywood filmmaking are inherently too limited to engage with such big questions. Ridley Scott has certainly tried, with mixed effects (and more frustrated audiences). 

That being said, Alien: Romulus is a mostly competent action-thriller. After a slot expository start, the film takes off with many action set pieces and a few creative tableaus. It builds on the erotically toned imagery of the previous films with some particularly inspired moments. There seems to be an inherent understanding of the xenomorphs as glistening symbols of reproduction, which inspire both horror and awe. The best moments lean into the paradoxical nightmare of evolution. It’s not enough to overcome the otherwise stale and familiar look of the rest of the film, but there are far worse-looking contemporary science-fiction films. While, overall, Romulus is only partially successful as a horror film or thriller (it lacks surprising moments, spare one), it’s mostly entertaining.

Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson as Rain and Andy are fantastic co-leads. The pair are united through loss and their status as outsiders. Their bond is transcendent though precarious due to Andy’s status as an “artificial human” whose identity can be rewired or refurbished, somehow only making him more human. He’s vulnerable to the tides of influence, much the same way we are. Unfortunately, though, the rest of the cast is mostly forgettable and expendable stock characters. Exposition does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of characterizing their backstories and roles within the greater narrative. The performances are fine but lacking in personality.

Yet, for its strengths, the politics and ideas behind Alien: Romulus makes it extremely difficult to endorse. It’s a rare mainstream film that doesn’t condescend to its audience. It doesn’t rely too heavily on expository dialogue to spell things out, but it can never quite overcome the fact that it feels like a shadow copy of the original film. While it brings a few new ideas to the table, the presence of Ian Holm lends an uncomfortable aura to the whole project. When critics lament the lack of new and fresh ideas, films like Alien: Romulus are unfortunately among the most insidious examples. They’re competent and even entertaining, even if they’re spiritually bankrupt. There are no ghosts in the latest film of the Alien franchise, only the undead — a dreadful and seemingly unstoppable parade of corpses revived for our entertainment. ■

Alien: Romulus opens in Montreal theatres on Friday, Aug. 16.

---

For our latest in film and TV, please visit our Film & TV section.