Alien: Romulus Review

The Alien franchise has had a long history of ups and downs across many forms of media. Alien: Romulus is the first movie in the franchise to be made after Disney’s takeover of 20^th Century Fox.

Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is a miner on the Weyland-Yutani colony of Jackson. When her contract is forcibly extended Rain agrees to join her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) to salvage an abandoned spaceship and raid it for equipment. However, the crew of young adults discover there’s a reason why the spaceship has been abandoned.

In the 2010s, Ridley Scott returned to the Alien franchise which was met with great fanfare. He produced Prometheus which aimed to expand the franchise and focused on ideas about the origins of man and the ethics of robotics. His 2010s Alien movies had a divisive reputation and Scott was partly responsible for Neill Blomkamp’s Alien movie getting cancelled so Alien: Covenant could be made.

Alien: Romulus acted as an opportunity to give the franchise a soft reboot, and like what was achieved with 2022’s Prey, the filmmakers went for a back-to-basics approach. Along with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Deadpool & Wolverine, Disney has been knocking it out with the park with their Fox acquisitions.

Alien: Romulus was made by Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, known for making Don’t Breathe. Alien: Romulus can be described as Don’t Breathe in Space. The setup of Alien: Romulus was the same as Don’t Breathe where a group of young adults decide to conduct a heist for a chance to escape the hellhole they live in, but end up finding it much more disturbing. Alien: Romulus improved upon the formula in Don’t Breathe since the characters were screwed by a heartless corporation and they were planning to steal from that heartless corporation.

The Don’t Breathe style story allowed Alien: Romulus to focus on a small cast of young up-and-comers. The most famous actors in the film were Spaeny and Isabela Merced. Alien: Romulus completes a hat-trick of hits for Spaeny who has been praised for her performance of Priscilla Presley, and was a part of the ensemble in Civil War. She had the journey that all female leads undergo in the Alien franchise, becoming a badass in a tank top. The most impressive member of the cast was David Jonsson as Andy, Rain’s android brother who underwent some major character switches.

Alien: Romulus was a small-scale story yet it fitted into the franchise. The first three films had a gritty, lived-in industrial look, and all the films in the original quadrilogy looked at people low down in society. In Alien the main characters were a combination of truckers and merchant sailors who were just doing a job, the heroes in Aliens were a forklift driver and rank-and-file soldiers, Alien³ was set on a prison planet, and the main characters in Alien Resurrection were mercenaries. Even though the Xenomorphs were relentless killing machines, the true bad guys in the franchise were Weyland-Yutani.

Alien: Romulus was a film made by fans. The look matched the previous entries and the story of Alien: Romulus took place between the first and second films. Alien: Romulus referred to the events of Alien and Prometheus. The filmmakers made their Alien entry work within the greater continuity of the franchise. There were also nods to the franchise’s past entries, even more maligned entries. There was a groan-inducing moment when one character said one of Ripley’s iconic lines, but this was a minor quibble since this was just a moment of fan service.

The filmmaker understood the main themes of the franchise: the evil nature of Weyland-Yutani, the dubious nature of androids, and the sexual nature of the Xenomorphs. All the Alien movies have been about rape and enforced pregnancy, fitting for Álvarez considering the twist in Don’t Breathe. H. R. Giger would have been proud since the Facehuggers were Facefuckers and there was an Xenomorph cocoon that looked like lady parts.

As a horror movie Alien: Romulus was effective. There was a tense stealth sequence that could have fitted in a video game like Alien: Isolation. There was a fair body of horror and gore that’s expected from an Alien movie. It was wonderfully disgusting showing the impact of acid blood on the human body. Álvarez did make the most out of the space setting and provided something different for the Alien franchise. The final act of Alien: Romulus was the most divisive part of the film, but there was still a creep factor due to some of the designs.

Alien: Romulus was initially set to be a straight-to-streaming movie like Prey. It got bumped up to theatrical release partly due to the success of Prey, the other reason being streaming movies have been struggling to make money. Alien: Romulus had a more modest budget of $80 million which ended up working in the film’s favour. At Odeon Cinemas there was a promo for the film which highlighted that it used practical sets and effects instead of CGI. This worked in Alien: Romulus’ favour, it made the film feel real and physical. There were some CGI effects but this was more out of necessity. Alien: Romulus looked better than other franchise films which had more than twice that budget. Even though Alien: Romulus was a grimy film, it was able to have some awe-inspiring imagery when the characters go into space.

Alien: Romulus has been declared by many Alien fans and critics as one of the best films in the franchise. I agree with that assessment and would only rank Alien and Aliens above it. This entry respected the films that came before it, working as a strong standalone story and was a love letter to the franchise.