Alien: Romulus (2024) has not been doing well at the box office. The best line I’ve read on the subject is that it is “heading towards profit” — never a good sign. I understand why. The previous two Alien films were terrible. But Romulus honestly deserves to be a success.

It’s not a masterpiece by any stretch. It has several flaws, and some of them are pretty glaring. But if I were to suggest a base line for what a quality film should look like, it meets the minimum standard, which for this franchise is nothing short of a miracle.

Romulus faces two challenges. Number one, as I said before, the previous films are awful — awful enough to discourage anyone from investing more time and money in the story. But ironically, terrible as the previous films were, Alien: Covenant implies a conclusion to the Prometheus story line. That is to say, the audience might go see this latest addition to the Alien franchise expecting to see the conclusion of the story of David, the malicious robot. And although the writing and characters in the previous films were nothing short of incoherent, people who’d already spent so much time following David and how he created the xenomorph were expecting to see the arc conclude and hopefully, watch David receive his comeuppance.

A completely new cast — without David!

The audience doesn’t get that. Instead, Alien: Romulus fast-forwards to Ripley’s timeline and follows a completely new cast. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but when I realized that we weren’t going to see David again, I felt disappointed. I wanted David to pay for what he’d done. I would’ve even tolerated Daniels being the one to deliver the final blow. If the audience felt like I did, this disappointment would sour them on the rest of the movie.

It’s a shame because Alien: Romulus is mostly well-written. The characters make decisions that are consistent with their personalities. Even the reasons behind the xenomorph’s hunting patterns are explained. And the writers manage to do this with little to no exposition. They actually put thought into their script. I was shocked. Plus, the actors also do a marvelous job, which is saying a lot because the cast looks very young. So, while I feel certain that this movie will fail, it really shouldn’t.

Why this movie should not fail

We start out by following the character Rain. She works on a mining colony for the notorious Weyland Corporation. Rain has finished putting in the hours she’s required to work in the mines, but the Weyland representative refuses to acknowledge this fact and condemns her to spend more years working for the evil corporation. She doesn’t want to continue her life as a miner because her parents died working in the mines, so when some of her friends tell her about a plan to escape, she’s on board.

Rain has something that her friends need; an android named Andy. Her father fixed up this robot so it could protect her, but it is broken, and Rain has to spend most of her time protecting it instead. However, it was built by the Weyland Corporation, so Rain’s friends believe it can gain access to an abandoned space station that they recently discovered orbiting their planet. Inside the space station are cryopods, so if Andy can gain access to the station, they can grab the pods and enter cryosleep while making the nine-year trek to the nearest planet.

Rain agrees to let them use her robot, so she and her friend leave the planet to find the space station. This was the first plot hole I noticed. Based on what the writers have told us, it sounds like the Weyland Corporation is in the habit of forcing people to work in the mines against their will. If this is the case, then I would imagine there would be a number of people willing to take their chances and flee the mining planet. Therefore, there should’ve been a security protocol to keep people from leaving. However, the writers seem to be in a hurry to put the cast on the station, so they don’t bother to explain how they were able to fly off the planet without resistance.

Once they reach the space station, Andy is sent to open the airlock leading inside. And here is the second plot hole. It’s a little thing, but noticeable. This airlock leads to a ventilation system for some reason. This made no sense. Why would somebody put a door leading outside of a space station in front of the air vents that presumably provide all the oxygen? However, these two plot holes are minor issues that have no ultimate bearing on the story.

Gravity purges

We also learn when the escapees first enter the station that the vessel goes through periodic gravity purges, moments when gravity automatically kicks on, to clear the station’s system. Why the station’s maintenance requires this is never explained, but these purges play an important part in the film.

Andy, Tyler, and Bjorn crawl through the vents and enter a large room, where they find enough cryopods for their small crew. However, there isn’t enough fuel in the cryopods to make the nine-year journey, so they must search the rest of the station for additional fuel. Navarro, the crew’s pilot, loads the cryopods onto their ship, while Andy and the others search for fuel.

They find what they need in another part of the station, but the containers with the fuel are part of a cooling system. When they try to remove them, an emergency system kicks on and the room they’re in is locked. This requires Rain and Navarro to enter the station to try and free their friends.

Rain finds an android that has been destroyed and realizes that if she can remove a chip housing the android’s programming and then put that chip inside Andy, the programming would provide the necessary clearances to unlock the doors. She removes the android’s chip and gives it to Tyler through a crack in the locked doors. This is another small plot hole. The door shouldn’t have had a gap, but it only saved the cast the trouble of breaking the glass, so it’s inconsequential.

However, while all of this is going on, whatever was being frozen inside the room begins to thaw, and we’ll see what’s waiting for our unsuspecting cast next Saturday.