Alien: Romulus: Half Measures.

Few films invite their audience to consider the distance between “could” and “should” as directly and defiantly as Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus. Intended for streaming but oddly pivoted to a theatrical release in what seems like a weird inversion of the cinematic see-saw that has come to characterize this little section of the Streaming Era, Romulus represents the rare instance of one of the Big Five deciding that, no—audiences have to see this one on the big screen. For what it’s worth, they were mostly right. Romulus takes full advantage of the theatrical setting…but this makes its halfway-realized potential feel all the more frustrating.

Alien: Romulus is, unfortunately, about as uneven as it gets. Despite being directly tuned into the proper wavelengths of the franchise during its most successful sequences, the film remains markedly hamstrung by an odd series of creative choices throughout. The end result feels like the work of a creative team that seems to whip back and forth between clearly misunderstanding the franchise’s simplest genetic footprints and then wildly over-betting on their mastery of the same, from one moment to the next. Álvarez and his team very clearly have an undeniable lock on things like mood and tone, both of which are brought to life by inspired photography and gorgeous production design. Unfortunately, the things Romulus gets right end up working to throw the things it gets wrong into even sharper relief.

For one, Romulus critically forgets that an Alien movie is supposed to be tired. The people in these films are fucking exhausted. So there is an immediate bit of yuck dropped into the most recognized aspects of the franchise’s patented yum when Álvarez makes the choice to cast the film almost entirely with performers who have yet to exit their twenties. This is a problem in a couple of different directions, as it’s easily observed that an obvious hallmark of the franchise is the presence of convincingly weary, middle-aged character actors with distinctly interesting faces. Whether it’s Harry Dean Stanton playing a 40-year-old 75-year-old in the first one or Ron Perlman playing it doesn’t matter who in the fourth one, these movies are fundamentally brought to life by characters who look like they need a cup of coffee and are also fucking sick of space. Instead of any of that, Romulus offers up a series of Hip-Coded Twentysomethings.

Lucky for us, Spaeny and Jonsson acquit themselves impressively, even if they do so on weirdly opposite ends of the spectrum: She does a ton with the relatively little she is actually given to do, while his undeniable chops make some ultimately thin material go a delightfully long way. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast fails to fare nearly as well, with performances that range from “there” to “move-impactingly bad.”

Álvarez certainly makes sure that they’re shot handsomely—the visuals here are some of the film’s most winning elements—but this is ultimately counterbalanced by a series of truly misguided creative decisions. To be clear, when Romulus is on, it’s really fucking on. The problem is that Álvarez consistently manages to take the wind out of his own sales, deflating all of his most successful choices before they get the chance to characterize the film in any kind of meaningful way. Moments that will truly leave marks on your armrest are rendered frustratingly inert, undone by choices that, if they’re not simply annoying, border on being downright artistically egregious.

Had:
• Thrills
• Chills
• Spills

Needed:
• Character work
• At least one sweaty, tired guy

Unfortunately:
• A creature design that genuinely made the audience laugh