As a general rule of thumb, your movie should never remind the audience of a better movie. But when you’re Fede Álvarez, making an interquel that takes place after Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece “Alien” and before James Cameron’s sci-fi action masterpiece “Aliens,” you don’t really have a choice. To his credit, Álvarez reminds the audience of some crappier movies too, as “Alien: Romulus” is less the standalone story it was pitched as and more a love letter to the entire saga of the Xenomorphs, bad installments included. Yes, even Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s bizarre “Alien: Resurrection” is as important as Ridley Scott’s underrated “Prometheus” to the narrative proceedings of “Romulus,” as Álvarez samples a little something from every dark corner of the “Alien” franchise (even video games like “Alien: Isolation”) to craft a film that, while rather entertaining, doesn’t feel like it has anything new to say.

Álvarez’s reverence for series progenitor Ridley Scott’s 1979 source text is clear from the opening shots of “Romulus,” which both mimic the opening shots of “Alien” and announce the return of the classic retro-futuristic aesthetic that Scott’s film helped pioneer. Gone are the sleek and advanced holograms and 3D mapping of “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant,” with “Romulus” returning the “Alien” franchise to its grimy roots of utilitarian analog controls, every ship teeming with clickable buttons and nostalgic CRT monitors. To that end, “Romulus” restores the industrialism that defined the first “Alien” film, centering its story around a group of young mining colonists. Enter Álvarez’s Ripley, Rain Carradine (portrayed by burgeoning superstar Cailee Spaeny), an orphan desperate to escape the toxic environment of the resource outpost Jackson’s Star, a planet perpetually shrouded from its own sun. Accompanied by her adoptive brother Andy (David Jonsson) – a Weyland-Yutani synthetic reprogrammed by Rain’s father to be her companion – Rain requests a transfer to the idyllic planet Yvaga, having completed the necessary hours in the mines. When her corporate overlords arbitrarily extend Rain’s contract, she is forced to take matters into her own hands.

Rain’s ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) has concocted a daring plan to escape the mines of Jackson’s Star with the help of a derelict spacecraft belonging to “The Company,” which is slowly being pulled into their planet’s orbit. Along with a trio of fellow young colonists desperate to escape their parents’ fate—Tyler’s pregnant sister Kay (Isabela Merced), his synthetic hating cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Bjorn’s religious girlfriend Navarro (Aileen Wu)—Tyler and Rain board the mining hauler “Corbelan,” intending to intercept the abandoned spacecraft, gain access via Andy the android, and abscond with enough cryo pods to sleep through the nine-year journey to their desired destination. Once aboard, however, our motley crew discovers that the dilapidated shuttle hurtling towards their planet was once a research station (divided into two sections: “Romulus” and “Remus”), dedicated to studying the very beast that Ripley jettisoned out of the “Narcissus” at the end of “Alien.” As the “Romulus”/”Remus” station’s impending collision with Jackson’s Star’s ring system approaches, the “Corbelan” crew must race against the clock while fighting for survival against the horrifying creatures they encounter.

While much of the “Corbelan” crew’s harrowing journey feels like Álvarez remixing the greatest hits of the franchise—from swarms of face huggers and hordes of xenomorphs to the obligatory chest burster and even a grisly birthing scene—there is precisely one new wrinkle that the “Don’t Breathe” director brings to the table: gravity, or rather the lack thereof. Sure, the “Alien” movies love to blow an airlock and depressurize a spaceship, as does “Romulus,” but never before in the franchise’s seven (or nine, if you count the two “Alien vs. Predator” sideshow attractions) movies has the advent of zero- G been such a contentious obstacle for the protagonists. In one of “Romulus’” best scenes, Spaeny’s Rain must weightlessly traverse a corridor splattered with the floating acidic blood of a mob of xenomorphs she just mowed down with her aim-assisted pulse rifle. It’s stylish set pieces like these that save “Romulus” from feeling like pure fanfiction, reminding the audience of the presence of a competent director at the helm.

Yet, despite all the vaginal parasitoids and phallic-headed predators our heroes must contend with, the most ghoulish thing encountered on the research station is the return of a fan-favorite character. Who this character is, I shall not say, but their presence in the film is a perplexing one, as the actor who originally portrayed this character has since passed, necessitating the use of haunting CGI to bring this character back to life. Rather than simply recast, Disney (who became the corporate steward of the “Alien” films after its acquisition of Fox) has once again opted to digitally exhume the likeness of a deceased actor in a decision that one can only hope was made with the blessing of the actor’s family. If there is one saving grace in this macabre development, it’s that this character’s role in the film is to give Andy a much-needed upgrade. David Jonsson, who far and away gives the best performance of the movie, shows incredible range in portraying the different personality permutations of Andy, reinforcing that the most compelling characters this franchise has to offer are its artificial ones.

It's such a shame that “Romulus” chose to willingly break its meticulously crafted immersion with a distracting act of digital grave robbery because the rest of the film looks so beautifully tactile. Álvarez’s back-to-basics approach extends beyond the rejuvenated emphasis on horror and the revival of aesthetical components to the actual filmmaking techniques employed. From elaborate miniatures to state-of-the-art animatronics, Álvarez and his team seamlessly blend the analog with the animated, crafting a visually convincing blockbuster like only the perfect balance of practical and visual effects can. Cinematographer Galo Olivares (in only his third feature, no less) deserves credit for the verisimilitude of “Romulus” as well, as his gorgeous, dread-inducing photography further perpetuates the film’s tangible atmosphere.

Ultimately, I find myself at odds regarding “Alien: Romulus.” The part of me that has sat stone-faced through a seemingly endless barrage of washed-out blockbusters caked in CGI sludge and evoking all of the visual splendor of wet concrete wants to praise “Romulus” for simply having shadows and contrast—a thing we cannot take for granted in the year of our lord 2024—and for utilizing classic movie-making methods. The part of me who was enraptured in the saga of Michael Fassbender’s David from “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant” bemoans the absence of Ridley Scott’s heady exploration of creation and the human condition. At its absolute best, the “Alien” franchise operates as cerebrally as it does viscerally, whether that be the assault allegory of “Alien” or the bone-chilling premise of its prequels: “What if you met God and he fucking despised you?” There is a thematic hollowness to “Romulus,” each metaphor or allegory a coincidence rather than a statement. The impetus for nearly every scene in “Romulus” appears to be that it happened in an earlier “Alien” movie. So, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the surface-level thrills of Álvarez’s latest film and was thankful to witness them in a crowded theater after this movie was rescued from its intended Hulu release, there was one inescapable question clawing its way out of my chest: "Why would I ever watch this again instead of 'Alien'?"