Alien: Romulus

Basically "Gen Z Does Its Alien," this surprisingly effective sequel/homage manages to hearken back to the first two films without burying the entire enterprise in cheap fan-servicing.

The “Alien” franchise has managed to become one of the most enduring in cinematic history despite the fact there hasn’t been a truly outstanding film since “Aliens,” the second one, in 1986.

It’s been passed around like hand-me-downs, with entire different generations of filmmakers and casts taking their own crack. Even OG director Ridley Scott returned to the fold for 2012’s “Prometheus,” which pretended not to be an Alien flick, and “Alien: Covenant” five years later, which at least had the integrity to be honest about it. Neither was much good.

So I went into “Alien: Romulus” with a drooped head, expecting little. And came away pleasantly surprised with an effective sequel/homage that manages to hearken back to the first two films with appreciation without burying the entire enterprise in cheap fan-servicing.

Directed by Fede Álvarez (“Don’t Breathe”) from a screenplay he co-wrote with Rodo Sayagues, it’s basically “Gen Z Does Its Alien.”

It’s a whole new cast of agreeably winsome 20-somethings who manage to find themselves trapped aboard a derelict space station of the evil Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which — you guessed it — has been contaminated by the titular species of chitinous, spider-like critters with telescoping jaws and acid for blood.

As is familiar, there’s a countdown to certain destruction during which the humans and sorta-humans try to stay alive while being hunted down by the aliens through a darkened, foggy maze of tunnels, chutes and ladders.

It even follows the pattern of the Last Girl, the young protagonist we just know is going to wind up as the last person standing. She is Rain, played by Cailee Spaeny (“Priscilla”), a lowly miner and daughter of miners, trapped by the corporation on the remote Jackson colony somewhere in space far, far away from Earth. She kind of gets written off by the other people, but turns out to be the one with the most grit and survival instinct.

In an interesting twist, her “brother” is Andy (David Jonsson), a synthetic person aka android. Her family recovered him from scrap and Andy is quite damaged, so he essentially presents as a special-needs child. He’s fond of grade school-level puns and is often targeted for bullying, but he’s stalwartly loyal to Rain.

In fact, his only programming directive is to protect her.

After it becomes clear the corporation plans to keep them stuck on the mining planet until they die of disease or accident, Rain is recruited by some friends with a screwy plan. They’ve learned of the abandoned space station, dubbed Romulus-Remus after the mythological twins, spinning away nearby in space. Their plan is to hop up there in a stolen mining ship and liberate the cryo-beds that will allow them to survive the 9-year-long journey to Yvaga, a free planet with a survivable atmosphere.

The other members of the crew include Tyler (Archie Renaux), a prototypical derring-do type, with whom Rain exchanges doomed glances; his sister, Kay (Isabela Merced), who early on is revealed to have a bun in the oven, for creepy contrast with alien larvae that gets embedded in people’s bellies; their cousin, Bjorn (Spike Fearn), who’s a dick, especially toward Andy, but has a reason for it; and Navarro (Aileen Wu), the only one with pilot skills.

(Many of them have British accents, for some reason, and not the fancy kind where they sound posh but the street kind where they skip over a lot of consonants and it makes them hard to understand.)

It turns out the others don’t even need Rain, only Andy because as a product of Weyland-Yutani he can pass the security protocols of the station using his magic robot finger. But they understand he and Rain are a package deal, and are willing to take both along. Also, as an android he can stay awake while they sleep, just in case anything goes wrong.

I won’t talk too much about what happens aboard Romulus because much of the film’s appeal is how it approaches our expectations, based on the previous movies, while also undermining them and throwing us some twists.

But yes, we will encounter the crab-like face-huggers, in swarming numbers not previously seen, as well as full-sized adults and even a new variation that seems incredibly silly when we first learn about it, but turns out to be the scariest damn thing in the whole flick.

A familiar face also makes a return, in ways rather disturbing, though different people may have different reasons for it being so.

Spaeny is solid in the main role, relatable and tougher than she first seems. But it’s Jonsson as Andy who really steals the show. Something happens to Andy that changes how the audience feels about him, but not Rain. She still considers him her brother and is fiercely protective of Andy even when it’s not always reciprocated.

Andy also gets the funniest line of the movie, probably the most blatant “Memberberries” moment, but coming out of his mouth it just works.

If you were to lay out the plot of this movie and the original “Alien” side-by-side, you would find quite similar story beats. And yet, I never felt like “Alien: Romulus” was just settling for copycatting.

It’s a lot of Something Old but also plenty of Something New, and even for curmudgeonly cynics like me who have lamented the sad state of Alien-ness, it will not leave you feeling Blue. That’s a decent cinematic marriage.