In 1979 Ridley Scott gave the world a Syfy/horror masterpiece with his slow burn sensation, ALIEN. Over four decades, the franchise has put out seven more films, a slew of shorts, mounds of collectable merchandise, and an ocean of books. This has made the Xenomorph the most popular extra terrestrial being off all time. After Scott returned to the series with two overindulgent prequels, the fandom clamored for a return to a film which would bring back the tense claustrophobic feel that made the original an immortal classic. Enter horror director darling Fede Alvarez. Having mastered the art of confined atmospheric filmmaking with his previous hits, Evil Dead and Don’t Breathe, the Horror-Nation has been howling in eager anticipation for the next entry into this immortal series.
Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her synthetic brother Andy (David Jonsson) are desperate to escape the mining colony they inhabit. Rain’s friend Tyler (Archie Renaux) and a derelict crew offer the desperate young woman a chance to escape their desolate planet by hijacking an uninhabited vessel. Once the motley crew boards the abandoned space station, they unleash a horror that has sat dormant for years. A supersonic race against time, a sinister motive, and the perfect killing machine creatures ensues. Rain must quickly solve the mystery behind the monsters to capture any hope of escaping to the light she desperately seeks.
Expectations have been out of this world for this upcoming entry. Those expectations quickly crash like a starship hitting an asteroid from this long-winded underwhelming legacy sequel. With the exception of a few action set pieces, Alvarez missed the mark on almost the entirety of the run time. Scott showed the world how to perfectly pace a slow burn with the original film, while Alvarez nearly puts his audience to sleep with a snooze of a first half hour of the film. The cast must share responsibility with the performance so wooden, the audience may get splinters from watching. The rest of the pacing becomes a jumbled mess, floating from intensity to mundane hard to understand dialogue which never gives any depth to any character. The script, which come from Alvarez and frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues, is so predictable and repetitive from previous films in the series, that the audience could leave after an hour and still be able to explain the last act. A few great sequences and seeing the mighty Xenomorphs in action make the film viewable, but one must suffer through a choppy mess for that payoff. Romulus is a massive miss from this talented production team, the only ones that will hear them scream is their finance department if this repetitive disarray of a film does not bring back the eighty-million-dollar budget.
Scream Score: 6.7/10