I think Fede Álvarez might be a fan of the Alien franchise. I can’t be sure. He might have just read the plot synopsises on Wikipedia, but my gut tells me he’s acquainted with these—

—no, I can’t keep it up. Alien Romulus is less a love letter to the Alien franchise and more a manifesto written by the lowest member of a cult trying to get Dear Leader to take notice.* In a bid to bring the series back to its roots, Álvarez cuts out all the good bits from the previous films and haphazardly joins them together into something that resembles an Alien film but is actually a bowl of tepid leftovers.**

The plot—what there is of it—involves a group of teenagers (or are they in their twenties?) on a mining planet (Jackson’s Star) who head off to a myserious space station orbiting the planet that no-one, not a single other person, has detected. They go to steal cryo-pods so they can head to a colony world not run by Weyland Yutani. Guess what they find on this massive, dead, undetected by nobody else space station. If your answer was Ian Holm… you deserve a gold star. There are also face huggers and xenomorphs and at least one gross-out pregnancy scene (because if the metaphor of the chest burster isn’t enough, we need to make it literal).***

David Jonsson (who will be familiar to those who’ve seen Industry) is excellent as the android Andy and makes the film watchable. He’s the only character who is given… a character. That he’s an android speaks volumes.

Yes, this is a dull and negative take on Alien: Romulus. Also, I’m sure Álvarez, a talented director, put a fuck-tonne of effort into making this film. Maybe he was told to be slavish in his approach, to remind people of what makes the Alien films great. All it did for me was make me want to see Alien again.****

*I know that joke falls flat, given Dear Leader, AKA Ridley, is an Exec Producer of the film.

**The film has one great set piece involving a whole lot of Alien acid floating in Zero G. A scene that has subsequently been ruined by two people on Facebook saying that the acid reminded them of jizz. 

***Also, I didn’t need to be reminded of a near identical scene from Prometheus.

***Could that have been the point all along?