Review: Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus was a conflicting watch. I love the Alien franchise. It is one of my all-time favorite franchises. The world Ridley Scott built, and the unique sequels have made it one of the greatest sci-fi franchises of all time. But Alien: Romulus is not a great Alien film. It’s a fine Alien film that had some cool moments but didn’t expand the world as much as it could have nor did anything original. It did more fan service and callbacks to past films than anything new. But, as a space horror film, Alien: Romulus was excellent. It was suspenseful, bloody, and had some good scares and the film looks spectacular.

Set roughly twenty years after the events of the original Alien, Alien: Romulus introduces us to Rain (Cailee Spaeny), who is living a miserable life on a mining planet with her brother Andy (David Jonsson), who is a Synthetic robot (like Ian Holm in Alien or Michael Fassbender in Prometheus) whose primary objective is to do whatever is best for Rain. Desperate to get off the mining planet, Rain and Andy are informed of an abandoned space station floating in their planet’s atmosphere by a group of friends and fellow miners. In hopes of finding technology that will help them leave their planet, they raid the abandoned space station only to find out it is being occupied by several Xenomorph aliens.

The plot of the film might sound familiar. A lot of Alien: Romulus might look, sound, and feel familiar. Following Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, two prequels that expanded the Alien world while also feeling singular in the stories it wanted to tell, Romulus reverts to a plot that feels very similar to past Alien films. There are nearly identical plot elements, there are characters who are shadows of ones we’ve seen before, and we even get some lines said that are ripped directly from other Alien films. There wasn’t much of the film that felt original or new. It felt like a hodgepodge of fan service and rehashed story beats that we had seen before. Though it claims to be a sequel, Alien: Romulus felt like a soft remake or reboot of the franchise. It’s one of those rare sequels that if you have never seen any of the previous films, you might like the film more because they won’t understand or be annoyed by the callbacks and similarities to the previous films. The film does take a wild turn at the end that I thought was bold and creative, something I wish the entire film was.

As an Alien film, Romulus left a lot to be desired. It is, however, an effective horror movie, something we’ve come to expect from director Fede Alvarez, the director behind 2013’s Evil Dead remake and 2016’s Don’t Breathe. Alvarez knows how to build tension throughout a scene and knows exactly when to unleash a scene of terror, whether it be a quick jump scare or a longer scene of Xenomorphs chasing our hapless heroes. Alvarez’s utilization of actual sets and practical effects gives the film a great look and grimy feel.

As the latest entry in one of my favorite sci-fi series, Alien: Romulus disappointed me and didn’t do anything unique or interesting. But, as a horror movie, Fede Alvarez continues to solidify himself as one of the best horror directors working today. So, depending on what you want when you see the film, a good Alien film or a good horror film, will dictate what you think of the film.

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