Review: 'Alien: Romulus' puts a young cast through a nail-biting encounter with familiar xenomorphs for a thrilling extension of the franchise

The newest movie in the “Alien” franchise — “Alien: Romulus” — is a three-course meal of science-fiction horror: A tantalizing appetizer, a meat-and-potatoes main course, and the most outrageous cinematic dessert.

The set-up places the new movie in the franchise’s timeline, shortly after the events of the 1979 original “Alien” — as a dark spaceship recovers something from the wreckage of the Nostromo, the freighter that was destroyed in an effort to battle back against the H.R. Giger-designed xenomorphic creature. What they’ve recovered, we see before the opening credits are over, is that xenomorph. 

Cut to a forever-dark mining colony, where a group of young indentured laborers are trying to escape the company — Weyland-Yutani Corp., the mega-corporation that is the franchise’s true villains — and get to a free planet nine years away. To survive the trip in their rickety space cruiser, they need cryogenic chambers, and think they can steal some off of an abandoned ship that’s hovering close to the colony. 

The ringleader, Tyler (Archie Renaux), says they can get in and out in short order, before the ship — really a floating space lab — in an hour. Tyler needs help from a friend, Rain (Cailee Spaeny), because she has a “brother,” Andy (David Johnson), who’s a synthetic and therefore can talk to the space lab’s computer and get them through locked doors onboard.

The crew of the cruiser — besides Rain, Tyler and Andy, there’s the foul-mouthed Bjorn (Spike Fearn), optimistic Kay (Isabela Merced) and hotshot pilot Navarro (Aileen Wu) — get to the space lab, and discover it wasn’t abandoned, but attacked. 

This is where director Fede Alvarez (“Don’t Breathe,” the “Evil Dead” reboot) and his writing partner, Rodo Sayagues, shift into the movie’s second act. Here’s where the terror starts, as the creepy-crawly face huggers start going after our crew. There’s also another surprise in the lab: A half-destroyed synthetic, Rook, who — spoiler alert! — strongly resembles someone familiar to fans of the original movie. 

Then, after the cast thins out some, comes the third act, which I will not describe other than with one word: Whoa.

Among the solid ensemble, Jonsson gives a nicely calibrated performance as the synthetic Andy, navigating the character’s plot-driven personality shifts. And Spaeny — who’s having a good year after “Priscilla” and “Civil War” — is the strongest protagonist in the franchise since Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley.

Alvarez creates some nail-biting tension, though with more jump-scare tricks than Ridley Scott did in the original. (Scott remains an executive producer here.) He also proves himself a master of effects work, particularly in some clever zero-gravity sequences and the motion-capture work for that messed-up synthetic character. Alvarez is clearly a fan of the franchise (and includes a couple Easter eggs in the dialogue to prove it), and he makes “Alien: Romulus” a thrilling addition to it.

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‘Alien: Romulus’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, August 16, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for bloody violent content and language. Running time: 119 minutes.