I was surprised that I enjoyed Hulu’s Prey (2022) as much as I did though what I think so impressed me about it was the way that it advanced the mythology of the Predator.

And sure, it did nothing that Dark Horse Comics wasn’t doing when they had the comics franchise (Predator and Alien currently are released via 20th Century Comics via Marvel) though it’s good that Hollywood can at least glom onto decisions that are in their best interests.

So I expected something similar with Alien: Romulus, especially since Fede Alvarez took Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) and took it to the next level with Evil Dead (2013) and somehow managed to preserve not only it’s gallows humor but inventive gore effects.

But Alien: Romulus doesn’t by my reckoning advance the mythology of the Alien in any appreciable way and it’s relatively meagre budget (it cost $80 million, which is a lot of money though both Alien: Covenant and Prometheus were more expensive and while Alien: Resurrection (1997) cost $60 million to produce in 1997 it would be more than double in today’s dollars.

And that’s not to imply that the movie doesn’t look good, but Alvarez seemingly cut Aliens to produce the movie (there was literally a single Alien suit made for the movie, along with an animatronic and a puppet version).

It’s certainly watchable, but as I said, contributes little to the mythology.