Alien, Ridley Scott’s gutsy 1979 landmark, has spawned sequels, prequels, and spinoffs so numerous that even I haven’t sought them all out. (Sorry not sorry, Alien vs. Predator.) This despite the fact that 1986’s Aliens, the first and best of the follow-ups, was one of those seminal documents that imprinted itself on my nascent imagination indelibly, as only a specimen of art one encounters at an extremely impressionable age can. But even though it’s been nearly a decade since we hit peak legasequel—Mad Max: Fury Road, Creed, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens all came out in 2015; each one renewing a born-in-the-’70s franchise that had since fallen on hard artistic times—we’ve never had a legasequel to Alien. 

Not until now, that is. The new Alien: Romulus is a lean, tactile throwback of a futuristic thriller that crossbreeds the gathering dread of Alien with the pass-the-ammo action of Aliens in a way the series has been trying—really, really hard—to manage for decades. This new entry is not a (double) jaw-dropper like those two; it’s a shrewd return to form that shall forever be in contention for the dubious honor of Third-Best Alien, or Best Sigourney Weaver-less Alien, or Best Alien This Century. But like all four of the Alien flicks made in the previous one, it is recognizably the work of a promising, youngish filmmaker who has already developed a distinct style—and whose new employers have not required him to shed that style like a rapidly outgrown skin. 

In this case that enterprising auteur is Uruguayan horror guy Fede Álvarez, who has three prior features under his belt—more than Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher, or Jean-Pierre Jeunet had when they made their Alien movies. Álvarez actually pays homage to his own low-budget 2016 nailbiter, Don’t Breathe, in one Romulus set piece, along with the obligatory (and too frequent) callbacks to the universally beloved Scott and Cameron Alien movies. It’s an admirable blend of swagger and reverence, and I respect it. 

The screenplay, credited to Álvarez and his longtime collaborator Rodo Sayagues, is set during the 57-year interregnum between Alien and Aliens, and shares with those two films the conviction that the real monster is rapacious, interstellar capitalism, as represented by the android-making, planet-colonizing Weyland-Yutani corporation. All of the previous movies have suggested that biological weapons were the application for which the company would sacrifice any number of its employees to get its hands on viable specimens. Romulus finally gives these C-suite sociopaths a more intriguing reason for wanting to capture and study these xenomorphs.

Rain Caradine (Cailee Spaeny from Civil War and Priscilla, stepping capably into Weaver’s Alien-stompin’ Reeboks as this movie’s Ripley surrogate) is a literal coal miner’s daughter, stuck in indentured servitude on a zero-daylight shithole planet after both her parents died of illnesses contracted in the mines. (This Is the Future That Conservatives Want.) Her closest companion is Andy (David Jonsson, versatile and compelling), a gentle, remaindered android Rain’s dad salvaged to look after her before he died. The fact that Rain has a bot who will do whatever she asks is at least one of the reasons her pals invite her along on their caper to break into a decommissioned orbiting space station to steal the far-too-pricey-for-plebes hypersleep capsules that will allow them to snooze their away to some other planet where you can actually see a sun. (This is a heist movie; they coulda called it Ripley’s Eleven.) Andy is obsolete, but he still has the ones and zeroes required to interface with the supercomputer that manages the station—literal code-switching!—which is split into sections christened (or Roman-ed) Remus and Romulus.

There, there be monsters. Obviously.

But that doesn’t mean that Álvarez hasn’t come up with a few surprises, including one that I won’t spoil beyond pointing out that it’s as ironic as it is ethically dubious. He’s a sure hand at the set pieces, one-upping the swimming xenomorphs from 1997’s deeply weird, deeply French Alien Resurrection by forcing our heroes to battle these beasties—and dodge their corrosive, acid-like blood—in microgravity for the first time. 

Álvarez achieves the film’s retro aesthetic through the use of practical effects wherever possible, both to conjure up the grimy industrial interior of the Romulus and the nightmarish creatures that have infested it. They’re articulated full-scale puppets or performers in suits far more often than they’re CGI phantoms, and that textural reality gives the movie, well, texture. Production designer Naaman Marshall has done an admirable job of re-creating the clunky-CRT-screen aesthetic of Alien, and this movie even includes some nods to (sigh) the excellent and very cinematic Alien: Isolation video game released a decade ago. (Here, take my lunch money.)

While it seems wrong to prize reverence above ambition, I have to admit that Álvarez strikes me as a more capable steward of this franchise than the guy who created it. Scott’s two latter-day Alien prequels, 2012’s Prometheus and 2017’s Alien: Covenant, were both slicker visually and ambitious to a fault thematically in comparison to his original Alien. Scott felt compelled to tell us who “made” this incredibly hostile and adaptable species and why, and he answered this unasked question in a tension-obviating way that felt like someone coming in during the last few minutes of a great horror movie and flipping on every damn light in the house. Like George Lucas with his nigh-unwatchable Star Wars prequels, Scott was determined not merely to repeat his prior triumph; he wanted to expand upon it, and he did. By giving us something that was not nearly as good. Twice!

Alien: Romulus represents a passing of the torch—or the jury-rigged flamethrower—to a worthy successor. And now, in keeping with the tradition of the series, the talented Mr. Álvarez should step aside for the next guy. Who I hope won’t be a guy. 

Alien: Romulus (R, 119 minutes) opens at area theaters today.