Alien: Romulus review
Fede Alvarez helms a fun ride through the Alien universe…even when it suffers from an identity crisis.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Alien: Romulus
Directed by Fede Alvarez
Written by Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues
Starring Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, Archie Renaux, David Jonsson, Aileen Wu and Spike Fearn
Alien: Romulus Review
I don’t know if you’ve heard…but there is a brand-new Alien movie hitting theaters this weekend. You may have thought there was given the return of the “there are no bad Alien movies” arguments online. There are, of course. Even if you eliminate the Alien vs. Predator movies from the conversation. Sure, movies like Resurrection, Prometheus and Covenant have their fans. They also have their moments. Are they all good movies though? I’m old enough to remember when David Fincher’s Alien 3 was a much-maligned entry in the franchise. Time is a funny thing. When the only movies we had to compare Alien 3 to were Ridley Scott’s masterpiece and James Cameron’s classic…yeah…Alien 3 is “the bad one”.
Flash forward to 2024. Alien: Resurrection, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant…and, yes, two Alien vs. Predator movies wreck the curve. Even if you live with the belief that there has never been a “bad” Alien movie. Alien 3, for what it’s worth, is a good movie. It simply no longer lives under the shadow of the superior first two films in the series. Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus is also a god movie. Even though it, too often, retreats to those same shadows.
Most of that can be chalked up to franchise expectations. If you are making an Alien movie in 2024…there are certain things that are going to be expected within it. You’ll get your facehugger and your chestburster and your morally ambiguous androids…it’s all a part of the Alien experience. Romulus adds in its own ideas, of course. It goes without saying that original concepts will always be more heavily scrutinized than rehashing the old tried and true ones. None of this is a problem, mind you. It would be a bigger issue if Romulus ignored or messed with the basics than fully embracing them.
The problem, if you consider it as such, comes from a different kind of deference to the first two films in the series. Fan service is a risky proposition. The wrong kind can pull you out of the movie you’re watching and make you think instead about the better movie it is referencing. Alien: Romulus does this a couple of times. Once using movie magic to recreate a character whose actor has passed away. A second time by delivering a franchise classic line sure to elicit eyerolls instead of cheers.
Trust me when I tell you that the line is the more egregious of the two. No matter how much you disdain the Hollywood practice of using special effects to turn old faces young again…or in this case back from the dead. Now that I think about it…the name of that character in this movie is a play on a different character from a different Alien movie…so maybe the two ideas are tied for level of annoyance. There are other references, of course. These are the two people are going to care about. Well…those and a definitive answer as to what happened to the original creature that Ripley blasted into space in Alien. That one is decidedly cool.
There is something telling about Romulus’s choices that warrants paying attention to. They’re meant to be fun moments. Crowd pleasers directed at a full audience of popcorn eating patrons. Fede Alvarez isn’t obsessed with making an Alien movie that stands the test of time and is hailed by future generations as a classic. He’s trying to make a fun movie first and foremost. How time remembers it is a side-effect. As it should be. You can’t reverse engineer the perfect Alien movie. We’ve already seen two of them. Alvarez chooses to set his story in between them on both the timeline and in spirit. Alien: Romulus feels like a cross between the original movie if it had more antagonists and the second movie if it had a rag-tag crew instead of space marines. If that sounds awesome…it mostly is. Mostly.
The plot is a simple one, as it is in the best of the franchise. Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is desperate to escape her life on a mining colony. Her friends may have a solution. A derelict space station on a collision course with the rings of the planet. Inside…five working cryonic chambers that will allow them to travel the distance needed to get away. What should be an easy job turns deadly when facehuggers emerge inside the station.
What follows is some expertly staged Alien action complete with untrustworthy synthetic motivations. A feast for the eyes of the summer moviegoers. Travel back in time to 1986 and you’ll find that’s exactly what James Cameron set out to (and succeeded) in making with Aliens. While Romulus doesn’t hit those heights…it exceeds most of what has come since. A solid movie with the things that you expect being done as well as they can be…occasionally put off by moments of fan service. Its new idea is appreciated…even if it can only ever end the same way. But as we know from franchise history…the further you stray from the formula…the more people will complain anyway.
Scare Value
Not without its questionable moments, Alien: Romulus manages to deliver an ideal summer movie experience. It has everything you want…and some things you don’t expect. Ultimately, a modern movie set in the Alien franchise is always going to find itself beholden to what is established (and expected). Fede Alvarez works his Evil Dead magic to deliver another fun franchise installment true to the spirit of what came before. Cailey Spaeny gives us a strong lead to follow. One of two misses can’t undo a string of hits.
3.5/5
Alien: Romulus Link
In theaters – Fandango
