ALIEN: Romulus
Note: This Movie recap was submitted by Shorif
The movie opens in space among USCSS Nostromo wreckage. A Weyland-Yutani company probe picks up a sample from the ship’s remains. After that, a group of researchers brings the Xenomorph remains with them for more investigation.
Working with her synthetic human, a malfunctioning Android called Andy, whom she refers to as her brother, orphaned Rain Carradine works on the Jackson’s Star Mining Colony. When Rain tries to leave her mining contract, she is informed it has been extended six years. Rain then watches as some young offenders beat Andy, demanding her to get him corrected. Moments later, Rain gets a video message from her ex-boyfriend Tyler inviting Andy on a covert mission.
Arriving at Tyler’s base, Rain and Andy join their cousin Bjorn, sister Kay, and boyfriend/the crew’s pilot Navarro. The crew intends to break into a decomposing Weyland-Yutani ship in order to pilfers cryostasis pods that would securely transport them to the planet Yvaga, nine years from now. Since Andy was created by Wey-Yu and can access the terminal of the ship, they especially need him. Tyler persuades her to join them even though Rain isn’t totally onboard because she wants to use Andy for something dangerous and worries she would get in trouble.
The six board a mining craft, the Corbelan, and fly above Jackson’s Star where they view the sun as near as they can. They next reach the Romulus and Remus section of the station. Andy tags along with Tyler and Bjorn to locate the pods. Rain looks after Kay after she passes out in meantime. Rain discovers she is pregnant by “some asshole,” but Kay orders her not to tell Tyler.
Navarro explains to Rain that Bjorn acts like a jerk towards Andy on their hunt for the pods; this behavior explains Bjorn’s anger since a synthetic chose to sacrifice her and two others to save more than a dozen other miners died inside a collapsing mine. Andy was never meant to travel to Yvaga, thus when they reach the pods they discover that there are only five and that cryostasis just has enough fuel for three years. After that, the guys come upon the top half of another synthetic and stop Bjorn from entering a large hole. As the ship locks, the guys keep walking until they come into a room they get locked inside. Closeby, a whole wall covered in frozen Facehuggers begins to thaw out.
Kay rests while Rain and Navarro go to assist the men. They discover the synthetic, which momentarily jerks back to life before Rain takes its module to replace the one Andy has. Tyler follows this; Andy pauses to reset. After that, the Facehuggers begin to leap into the lake; one of them almost lands on Bjorn’s face. As Andy wakes back up and stops a Facehugger from getting Tyler, Rain tries to break the door open. The Facehuggers start quickly crawling after the guys as they leave the room. Navarro gets a Facehugger latched on her while the crew seals the door.
Andy reboots to become more concentrated and devoted to Wey-Yu while the crew works to take the Facehugger from Navarro. The crew hooks up dead synthetic Rook and gets him to come back to life in order to figure out how to assist Navarro. They are essentially all doomed, he says, since they are about to meet a Xenomorph personally. Rook notes the corpse of one Xenomorph and how the Romulus researchers were killed by it when it was found to still be alive until it was shot dead; but, its acid blood destroyed what remained of the ship. Rain then suggests freezing the tail of the Facehugger to remove it from Navarro. It works; she wakes up but Rook makes it plain she is still doomed because of what lies ahead.
Starting to run for it onto the Corbelan are Bjorn and Navarro. Navarro begins to feel sick and uses an x-ray flashlight to see Kay that a chestburster is developing within of her. Before the Chestburster blows out and kills her in front of horrified Kay, Navarro falls and starts foaming at the mouth. Navarro’s convulsions cause her to kick a lever triggering the Corbelan to crash into the Romulus’ hangar bay, sending it headed towards the Jackson’s Star asteroid belt with less than an hour before impact.
Rook chats with Andy about their goals as Wey-Yu synthetics while Rain and Tyler head to the hangar. Andy returns with them, and they work to raise the station’s temperature so as to hide themselves from the Xenomorphs. They discover the Romulus crew dead as soon they arrive. Kay and Bjorn meanwhile try to flee safely. Bjorn attempts to fry the Xenomorph that came out of Navarro with a cattle prod, but it starts to leak its acid blood onto him, gradually burning and killing him until a large enough glob drops onto his chest finishes the task.
Kay calls Tyler as the Xenomorph targets her. She gets to the others outside the hangar, Andy knows the Xenomorph wants them to open the door so it can kill all of them, so he declines to assist Kay. Rain objects, unintentionally tells Tyler her sister is pregnant, and the Xenomorph grabs Kay and hides her from view. Andy slaps out of rage, then promptly regrets it.
Now focused on his instructions per the company’s interests, Andy brings Rain and Tyler into the lab where they discover a human/alien DNA mix Rook names “the Prometheus strain.” A test conducted on a rat using the mixture is shown on a video showing it healing from its original sickly state. Andy arms Rain and Tyler M41 Pulse Rifles to fight the Xenomorph. While the end result is a dead rat-Xenomorph hybrid in its cage, they overlook the rest of the rat video as they leave, which shows something horrific growing out of it.
The three follow a corridor and come upon Kay unconscious but alive in a Xenomorph cocoon. Rain stops Tyler almost injecting Kay with the DNA sample to try and heal her and gets her on her feet to return to the ship. Tyler is then grabbed by the Xenomorph with its tail, and its second mouth is rammed into his face killing him. Rain goes back for Andy, then leads Kay to safety so she may get herself to the ship. Kay pumps herself with the sample as Rain leaves.
Rain finds Andy and takes off the module so he may return to his old self; Rook tells them their efforts to flee will be useless. Rain gets a notion to turn off the gravity in the ship as a whole when they seem to be giving up hope—that of Xenomorphs approaching them. Rain fires her rifle at the aliens as they start to float, killing them but also dispersing the acid blood all over the planet while Rain gets dangerously near to flying into it. She moves herself away with the recoil of the rifle, but finally she gets herself to safety. Just as the gravity comes back and Rain begins to fall, Andy and Rain wind up ascending the elevator. With its tail, the main Xenomorph catches her; but, Andy descends with Tyler’s rifle kills the beast before releasing Rain.
Just as the Romulus starts to descend upon the asteroid belt, Rain and Andy return onto the Corbelan with Kay. Rook makes one last try to get Andy to follow the Wey-Yu goal of going back to the company with the sample, but they overlook him since he ends up wrecked along with the rest of the station.
As Kay approaches Yvaga, rain causes her to cryopodically. But Kay’s vitals begin to drop since the DNA mix is compromising her pregnancy. Her stomach has grown completely, and she is currently delivering a quite difficult birth. Rain aids her as Kay generates an egg-like pod with a hybrid between human-Xenomorph. Rain removes the egg; its acid causes it to slide through the grates. She goes to try and arm herself to get help, but when she gets back to Kay the “child” has now fully matured to resemble the Engineers as it feeds off Kay’s chest, killing her. Andy has also suffered quite a lot.
As the ship’s temperature starts to drop sharply, Rain donons a spacesuit. She then attempts to separate the cargo pod from the ship since the damage from the birth of the Offspring is driving it towards the asteroid belt. As rain begins to pull the levers to drop the pod, the Offspring attacks her and seeks to kill her. The two fall outside and hang on for dear life until Rain uses her harness to pull the last lever and send the cargo pod and the monstrosity into the belt to become space dust.
Rain puts Andy in one of the cryopods. Uncertain of what they will find but hopeful she can manage whatever comes their way, she notes one last log on the route to Yvaga before entering stasis herself.