Alien: Romulus [Review]
Fede Alvarez’s splattery Alien sequel is a back-to-basics horror blast that’s not for the squeamish.
Alien: Romulus. Credit: 20th Century Studios
Alien: Romulus is the fifth mainline Alien sequel, sixth if you count the excellent Alien: Isolation video game by Creative Assembly, which director Fede Alvarez has acknowledged as an influence on his work on this film. Romulus returns to the series’ horror roots of scary monsters hunting down a human crew in a vessel in space for an effective, scary, and thrilling film with just a little too much fan service.
Romulus takes place in between producer Ridley Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens. Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) lives and works in the bleak Weyland-Yutani mining colony Jackson’s Star with her developmentally disabled adoptive android brother Andy (David Johnsson). Desperate for a better life when her contract is cruelly extended, she agrees to help her friends explore a decommissioned space station to search for working cryopods they can use to escape to Yvaga, a planet outside of the corporation’s reach. Of course, things go horribly wrong on the derelict space station Romulus.
Alien: Romulus. Credit: 20th Century Studios
Romulus looks great. The sets and the creatures are all fantastic. Outside of dodgy digital effects around one particular character, the movie will be a feast for the eyes of any Alien fan. The lived-in, grimy, chunky, sci-fi design aesthetic of the original 1979 film is kept intact, without gloss. Heavy use of practical effects makes the movie’s horror more visceral and believable, especially when the actors can interact with real objects rather than CG models added during post-production.
The young cast gives decent performances. David Jonsson is a highlight as Andy. He deftly handles changes to his character over the course of the film, but everyone gives good horror performances; this isn’t a film with great depth of character for most of the supporting cast to work with.
Alien: Romulus. Credit: 20th Century Studios
Romulus is at its strongest during its moments of horror, both in the creeping dread of anticipation for things to come and in its moments of visceral action that occupy most of its propulsive 2-hour runtime. With its back-to-basics approach and strong execution, Romulus is an exciting introduction to the franchise for newer audiences. However, the film leans too heavily on fan service to please long-time fans, with continuous nods to earlier films in the series, some more egregious than others. Hearing Andy say, “Get away from her, you bitch” elicited a groan for me rather than joy. There’s enough good in Alvarez’s story and execution for him to have been able to have the built-in audience enjoy the film on its own merits as a splatter film set in the Alien universe rather than on the weightless, fleeting joy of nostalgic recognition.
I enjoyed Benjamin Wallfisch’s score for the film; it greatly helped heighten its atmosphere. While the other callbacks in the film are mostly superfluous, Wallfisch’s nods to previous entries’ scores by Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, and Marc Streitenfeld feel more apt and elicited a more authentic emotional reaction from me while watching Romulus.
Alien: Romulus. Credit: 20th Century Studios
Quibbles aside, I had a blast watching Alien: Romulus. I want to watch it again after revisiting the latter Alien films, as Alien: Resurrection and those that followed aren’t as fresh in my memory. When all is said and done, I just love spending time in Weyland-Yutani’s dystopia, and Romulus does an admirable job of getting newbies on board. I hope that in the next movie, we get to see Alien: Isolation’s terrifying Working Joe androids.
Alien: Romulus opened on August 16, 2024, and is in theaters now.
