Alien: Romulus is the interquel in the Alien franchise. Set in between the events of Alien and Aliens, the story follows a group of teens living in a Weyland-Yutani mining colony who come across a decommissioned space station infested with aliens. Starring Caliee Spaeny as Rain, David Jonsson as Andy, Archie Reneaux as Tyler, and Isabela Merced as Kay, Alien: Romulus delivers incredible frights and jaw-dropping cinematography but can cross the line in honoring its predecessors.
This movie is beautiful. The movie’s first section on the colony is so dark and bleak it sets the tone perfectly. Without the threat of aliens, these teens are going to die. The company is and always has been the main villain of the franchise as they manipulate the people into selling their souls into labor. The scenes are shot so dark and gritty.
In contrast, even though they have this entire station to explore, it feels incredibly claustrophobic once they are in space. The movie establishes the threat of the aliens pretty early, and the practical effects looked awesome. The zero gravity scenes, especially the one towards the end were utterly spectacular. The sound design was incredible as well. Pretty much, on a technical end, this movie is a masterpiece.
The acting is also nothing short of incredible. Led by the wonderful Caliee Spaeny, we are immediately drawn to her on a deep level. Her family is all gone except for her synthetic human brother her father programmed for her. Her chemistry with David Jonsson, who is also a show stealer, is incredible and is why this movie has such a strong foundation. Both of them are such powerhouses who can balance their strength, their intelligence, and their poise in difficult situations. Spaeny is seeing a massive rise in her career, and she absolutely deserves it. Jonsson is someone who rocked in Rye Lane and is someone whose career is worth keeping an eye on moving forward.
Archie Reneaux and Isabella Merced are also great here. They play siblings (and Tyler as Rain’s ex) and I just couldn’t get enough of all of them on screen together. Kay is pregnant which keeps her sidelined while Rain, Tyler, Andy, and the others are exploring but it adds tension when the action comes to her. I know I said in my last movie that you need more than one movie to earn the title of scream queen, but she delivers one of the best screams in a modern horror movie you’ll hear.
Tyler is played as more of the muscle but the movie doesn’t treat him as a gun. He is a concerned brother and a genuinely caring person who wants a better life for his friends and family. He is the one who finds out about the space station carrying the cryo-pods they’d need to make it to a new planet and when he realizes that they are in danger on the ship, he bears the full weight of its consequences.
Now, Alien: Romulus is a movie that plants itself in the middle of one of the most iconic movie franchises ever made. Fede Alvarez has made a name for himself directing the 2013 reboot of The Evil Dead and Don’t Breath. He knows how to take existing source material and reimagine it for a modern audience. One of the loudest critiques you’ll hear about this movie is that it crosses the line of honoring the original Alien movies and redoing them. This can come from a similar story structure, or blatant rip-offs of the iconic lines like “Get away from her, you bitch”. The worst offense is easily the use of CGI deepfake technology to have the deceased Ian Holm (who played Ash in Alien) in this movie to play an android named Rook. For a movie to tout its use of practical effects to turn around and use this type of deepfake CGI is lame. Especially given that it’s not the same character as in the original, and the franchise has had plenty of different androids used, the only point was for fanfare. Just have Michael Fassbender come back as David, it’s what the people (me) want!
This movie did have me pretty scared though once the aliens were out. The face huggers resembled a scorpion-spider hybrid and how they scurried and leapt around got me good. The xenomorphs still look incredible and I love that the movie threw a bunch of them in. They were vicious and things got deliciously bloody. The last 30 minutes are a complete curveball and maybe some of the wildest horror you’ll see this year. It is truly nightmare fuel, and I couldn’t have been more happy walking out.
Final Thoughts
Alien: Romulus is exactly what I was hoping it would be. It is scary, it is bloody, and it is beautiful. Yes, it goes out of its way to emulate its predecessors, and the deepfake Ian Holm android is upsetting. But we get Cailee Spaeny with a big gun and her Reeboks, and I think that’s what going to the movies is all about. You should go see Romulus.
