Disney+ has just added one of 2024’s best sci-fi movies

It's a real crowd-pleaser.

The stand-alone film takes place between the events of Ridley Scott's original Alien and James Cameron's sequel Aliens.

It centres around Rain (Cailee Spaeny, Civil War), a young woman living light years from Earth on a mining planet run by the evil Weyand-Yutani Corporation.

Following her parents' deaths from lung cancer - which was caused by the mines - Rain finds herself in debt to the shady corporation. As such, Weyland-Yutani forces her - along with many other young orphans on the colony - into indentured servitude.

Rain's only companion is Andy (acting standout David Jonsson, Industry), a former Weyland-Yutani android (get it, Andy the android). He was found in a scrapyard by the young woman's parents and was re-programmed by them to protect her at all costs.

As Andy starts glitching more frequently, all seems hopeless for Rain. This is until she is approached by fellow colony orphan Tyler (Archie Renaux, The Jetty), his sister Kay (Isabela Merced, Sicario 2), their cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn, Aftersun) and their hacker pal Navarro (newcomer Aileen Wu).

They have a plan to rob a Weyland-Yutani spaceship left parked just off-planet and escape to a more idyllic planet far away. To do this, however, they need Andy to enter the spacecraft (being a Weyland-Yutani android, he has all the codes).

Rain and Andy agree to the mission and the group sets off on their quest. Arriving on the ship - which is an R&D space for Weyland-Yutani split into two sections: Romulus and Remus - the youngsters soon realise they are in way over their heads, particularly when they accidentally defrost rows and rows of killer facehuggers left in cryosleep.

The first element that strikes you while watching Alien: Romulus is how gorgeously retro it looks.

Speaking to JOE - in a spoiler chat you can watch below - co-writer and director Fede Álvarez (2013's Evil Dead, Don't Breathe) stressed how he wanted to utilise practical effects when making the sci-fi and this shows in the end product in two main ways.

For one, the movie feels staggeringly tactile, making you believe more in the fantastical, nightmarish events playing out onscreen. But also, its sets - with their emphasis on big bulky machines with smoke-emitting pipes and fuzzy screens and blinking lights that pierce through the fog - are a genuinely stunning recreation of the aesthetic Scott accomplished in the original: a '70s idea of a dystopian future.

That's not to say, however, that Álvarez and his co-writer Rodo Sayagues don't put their own spin on the material. A slow-burn but gripping first act introducing viewers to the characters and the harsh world they inhabit eventually gives way to many, many scenes of carnage - most of which are inventively tense and scary and worth the price of admission.

With his Evil Dead reboot and Don't Breathe, Álvarez showed he was a master at crafting these elaborate, suspenseful, almost Rube Goldberg-esque set-pieces in which a whole host of terrors are unleashed on his characters.

He stays true to form in Romulus, except this time it's even better because he's got all the elements of the Alien franchise - including maybe cinema's most iconic monster - as part of his arsenal.

Everything from the Xenomoroph's acid blood to Andy the android's frequent malfunctions to the central ship's zero gravity settings winds up playing a role in the action - but excitedly often not quite in the way you'd expect.

And while viewers who have never seen another Alien movie won't be lost watching Romulus, it is absolutely loaded with homages to the entire franchise, most of which are successful.

Plus, there are at least two direct references to what has come before that should get die-hard fans of the series very excited.

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