Alien: Romulus review

ALIEN: ROMULUS: 

FEDE ÁLVAREZ BRINGS ONE OF THE BEST ALIEN FILMS IN A LONG TIME! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

20^TH CENTURY STUDIOS

The Xenomorph is back in Alien: Romulus

 

            The aliens have returned to cause more terror in Alien: Romulus, the latest installment of the Alien franchise dating all the way back to 1979 with the original Ridley Scott sci-fi/horror classic. Unlike previous entries in the Alien series, this isn’t a sequel to any of the films nor is it a prequel like Prometheus or Alien: Covenant, it’s a film set in-between the events of the 1979 Alien and 1986’s Aliens but doesn’t feature any of the characters or actors from the first two movies. 

            I guess it makes sense to do a film set in-between the two best entries of the series since trying to piece together the Alien continuity is so confusing it can make your head spin…and this is coming from someone who liked Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Best to keep things simple and offer a side story set somewhere in the middle of the first two films without worrying too much about continuity. 

            I was interested when I first saw the trailer and heard that Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead (2013), Don’t Breathe, The Girl in the Spider’s Web) was attached to direct with the original film’s director, Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Gladiator 1 and 2, The Martian) as a producer. Sure, none of the films released after Aliens could live up to the ones that started it all (As mentioned before, I like Prometheus and Covenant as well as the first Alien VS Predator despite them paling in comparison), but perhaps some fresh blood can rejuvenate the franchise…that is exactly what Alien: Romulus does and it succeeded. 

            Before anyone asks…No, this is not as amazing as Alien or Aliens and nothing will ever come close to matching the legacy of those films. But I will say, this is the best Alien movie since the original two and truly something that must be experienced in a theater with a large screen (I saw it in IMAX which was really neat). 

            The film follows a group of space colonizers living on a grungy mining planet with no sunlight consisting of an orphaned young woman named Rain (Cailee Spaeny-On the Basis of Sex, Priscilla, Civil War), her adoptive brother Andy (David Jonsson-Industry, Murder is Easy, Rye Lane) who is also a malfunctioning synthetic human reprogrammed by Rain’s father, her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux-Voyagers, Shadow and Bone, Morbius), his pregnant sister Kay (Isabela Merced-Transformers: The Last Knight, Instant Family, Madame Web), their cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn-The Batman, Tell Me Everything, Back to Black), and his girlfriend Navarro (Newcomer Aileen Wu) leaving their planet to visit a derelict spacecraft to salvage cryonic statis chambers so they can escape to Yvaga, a planet with improved living conditions. Upon reaching the spacecraft, they soon discover some terrifying experiments were happening onboard and horrific alien creatures have been let loose with only one intention, kill. 

            What started off as a simple salvaging mission quickly turns into a bloody fight for survival as they soon come face to face with the most terrifying creature in the universe, the Xenomorphs. 

            The film also stars Daniel Betts (Fury, Allied, Sex Education) as Rook, an android aboard the spacecraft with the likeness of Ian Holmes’ Ash from the original 1979 film. 

            Overall, Alien: Romulus probably won’t reach cultural significance like Ridley Scott’s Alien or James Cameron’s Aliens, but it’s a solid midquel to two of the greatest sci-fi/horror films of all time with tons of suspenseful scenes and love for both movies in terms of the production design, details, and references (The latter has varying results). 

I do wish the characters were more fleshed out though especially compared to the Nostromo crew from Alienand the Marines from Aliens because aside from Cailee Spaeny’s Rain and David Jonsson’s Andy (Who is amazing in the role, by the way!), the rest of the group is either there, being obnoxious dicks, or just there to get killed by the aliens right away despite the actors giving decent performances. They aren’t Aliens VS Predator: Requiem bad in terms of human protagonists but compared to the first two Alien movies and even Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, the characters in those had likable and/or memorable personalities and dynamics that made audiences grow attached to them whereas here, it’s mostly just the main woman and her robot brother and both of them do have a strong dynamic together that makes the film work. 

You can see the love Fede Álvarez has for the original Alien in terms of how the film looks with sets featuring 70s-style computers, lighting that changes from yellow to red, cues from Jerry Goldsmith’s music score being featured, and yes, the use of practical effects on the aliens. In an age where most modern films would just use CGI for the aliens, Alvarez made sure to go the extra mile and shoot these aliens in front of the camera with costumes, animatronics, and puppetry and they look genuinely frightening whenever they’re onscreen. 

The CG effects are hit or miss with the Facehuggers acting more like the ones from the first Alien VS Predator rather than the first Alien movie and look pretty fake. But then you have this creative and suspenseful sequence with the characters avoiding CG acid blood in zero gravity that’s probably the most suspenseful scene in the film. 

For the first two acts, I thought this was the best Alien movie since the original two, but I will admit the third act gets pretty silly and starts to lose its momentum from earlier (There’s also this cringy nod to a famous line from Aliens here that just felt tacked on and forced). It will definitely be very divisive amongst audiences and Alien fans (Especially since it’s reminiscent of the last act of the immensely stupid, Alien: Resurrection), but I was still invested enough in what was happening and how the characters were going to get out of the situation. 

Despite a few shortcomings, I enjoyed the hell out of Alien: Romulus and will happily hail it as the best Alienfilm since Aliens. The first two acts are the strongest parts of the movie, but the film in general is worth seeking out in theaters to experience on a large screen with an audience, I might even go scream in space again sometime soon.