Alien: The Corruption of Caretakers
The scariest part of Alien: Romulus is not the aliens but...
There is something deeply disturbing about the new Alien film–and it’s not the Aliens.
The film’s tension comes not from which alien is around the corner but instead from when the brother will sabotage his sister’s life.
While Fede Álvarez’s (dir: Don't Breathe, Evil Dead) Alien: Romulus features some stunning practical effects and one stand-out set piece involving zero-gravity alien acid blood, the real nefariousness comes from the film’s core relationship between the lead and their robot brother.
Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla, Civil War) the always magnetizing actress, who is most watchable when she subtracts elements from her performance, is the protagonist.
She plays a small-town (off-world) mining girl who starts the film as a caretaker for her brother–who happens to be a humanoid (played beautifully by David Jonsson).
His programming seems to limit his intellectual and social ability.
So, in the film’s first act, there’s a wonderful care that Spaeny takes to shield her “brother” from the bullies in the mining town and later her crewmates.
And this is when the brother’s programming kicks in.
His core directive is to protect his sister, and in an effort to help her escape the mining town, he jumpstarts the computer on an escape ship.
But this is Alien. And a clean escape is a daydream.
So when Spaney and her crewmates discover that not all is dormant on this ship, they do what they think is the only practical thing and upgrade the brother’s programming.
Unfortunately, this upgrade is a direct implant from the previous humanoid on the ship (Ash, played by a CGI Ian Holm, reprising his role from the first Alien).