Alien: Romulus Review
It’s been seven years since we’ve last gotten to dive into the world of the Xenomorph. The last two installments were done by Ridley Scott himself, this latest installment is from Evil Dead rake director Fede Alvarez.
Alien: Romulus takes place on a harsh mining planet where you have to work so long to be able to leave the planet and go to a terraformed colony. Cailee Spaeny plays Rain, her parents died years ago and she works in the mines with her android Andy.
One day when Rain is denied leaving and is forced to put in more time she goes to her friends who have found a station floating in orbit with Cyropods they can steal and use to flee to a terraformed colony. You can guess where this goes.
To say I was excited when this film was announced would be an understatement. Fede was a great pick to direct an Alien film. He’d proven he was a natural in the horror genre.
His Evil Dead remake was for horror hounds who didn’t care for the goofiness of Raimi’s originals. His Evil Dead and Don’t Breath are violent and gorey, perfect for an Alien film.
That horror does transfer into this film, but it’s not as much as I expected or hoped for. The horror does ramp up (more on that later) but overall, with a name like Fede Alvarez, I was left wanting more from the grotesquerie.
Cailee Spaeny is on the list of next big stars in Hollywood. After Priscilla last year and Civil War this year she has proven she is here to stay. She is great as the next heroine in this franchise.
She carries the film with ease and her small frame adds another level of anxiety when the battle with the Xenomorphs begins.
The rest of this review will go into spoiler territory, so if you don’t want the film spoiled for you, I suggest stopping reading.
Because my excitement for this film was so high, I was disappointed by the overall result.
First, The CGI is up and down. When the frame is filled with CGI like an outer space shot, it looks good. When real people are interacting with the CGI, the seams are visible.
Secondly, this felt like a major reaction from the studio to give some fan service because fans seemed mixed on the last two films, also pushing Ridley out of the director’s chair.
There are moments that call back to the first two films, but they come off as a reminder that there are better films in this franchise. There is a moment that blends my first two complaints.
They find an android onboard, it looks like Ash from the first film, and they even use CGI to make it look like Ian Holm. It does not look good…ever.
It also adds to confusion about how this connects to the other films, which in the end my wife and I were not sure it does. It’s like the Rogue One of Alien films.
Lastly, the final horrific reveal, though fist-pumping fun, has already been done before. in this franchise in fact. I won’t say much else to not fully spoil the fun. But the fun is undercut when you realize we’ve seen it before.
Overall Alien: Romulus is a mixed bag. I will always find something to enjoy in an Alien film. There are some stellar sequences in this film but not enough horror and the horror we do get we’ve seen before.
Plus the CGI is a bit shoddy. The film almost feels like a rebuke of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant which are incredible and deserve revisits by everyone.
3.5/5 Stars
