Alien: Romulus’ Review

The Alien franchise has been around for nearly half a century now, and it’s had good and bad moments during its lifetime. The latest movie in the series, ‘Alien: Romulus’, goes back to basics with a classic horror vibe.

The story follows a group of young colonists on a planet run by the Weyland-Yutani corporation, working in dangerous jobs, with constant hardship, risk of disease and disaster threatening their lives. Unsurprisingly, they’re desperate to escape, and when they discover an old space station drifting above the planet, they go to investigate, hoping to salvage some cryochambers so they can travel to a new planet. As you might expect, there is an unwanted surprise waiting for them on the station.

After the attempts at metaphysical philosophy seen in ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Alien: Covenant’, this is a welcome return to the franchise’s base, with what’s essentially just a straight-up horror movie. In a lot of ways, it’s actually a mirror to the original movie, in its overall tone and feel, with some elements from ‘Alien: Resurrection’ thrown in for good measure. This isn’t a bad thing, as it manages to make good use of all the material at its disposal, while the addition of a younger cast of inexperienced, unprofessional characters makes it more like a traditional survival horror, but with aliens.

If you were expecting this movie to reference other entries in the franchise, then you’d be right. It does a lot, too much, if you ask me. It’s the kind of thing you would expect from a franchise that’s been running as long as this one, and the current love of this kind of self-referential style. There are pulse rifles, repeated quotes, and even entire scenes that are riffing on classic moments. None of them are really necessary, but they don’t do much harm to the movie either. The biggest one is the “return” of Ian Holm, playing an android from the same series as Ash, using digital technology to bring him to life. It didn’t need to be included, as they could have used Michael Fassbender to similar effect, but I think it’s a genuine attempt to throwback to the original movie, rather than a cynical “look at this!” moment.

‘Romulus’ reminds me of another recent movie from a popular franchise, ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ from 2021. That film is full of callbacks and references that fans will get, and it feels very safe and inoffensive. Whereas the past couple of ‘Alien’ movies have tried to fill in unnecessary backstory about where the Xenomorph came from, this film cuts all that back and just delivers a good story. In its standalone, grounded aspects, it could be favorably compared to ‘Prey’, which did the same for the ‘Predator’ franchise a couple of years ago. It feels like an attempt to win back fans by giving them what they want, and in that respect it works. The downside is that it doesn’t do much you haven’t seen before.

Whereas the past movies could be exasperating in their failed attempts to take the franchise in a new direction, ‘Romulus’ treads a well-known path that will be familiar to fans of the franchise. Sometimes it’s packaged a little differently, but it’s still recognizable.

It does have a few cool features, particularly in the way that it uses facehuggers as a major threat. Rather than them just leaping out of eggs when they’re needed, they actually chase the heroes, and are as much a danger as the full-grown Xenomorphs.

The place where it all starts to go a bit weird is in the final act. It’s a feature of the franchise that just when you thought it was safe, something else jumps out at you, but this particular thing is so weird and disturbing, it’s really a step too far, and the film would have been better off wrapping up with its first ending. It’s where the film becomes very ‘Resurrection’-ish, with a kind of pseudoscience that would be more at home in Legendary’s Monsterverse, and takes away from the grounded feel of the rest of the movie.

Aside from that, Fede Alverez does a great job as director, with plenty of jump scares, dark hallways, and the like. Likewise, all the main cast are fine, with individual enough characters to make you care what happens to them, though none are at the level of franchise legend Ellen Ripley. It’s all competently done, and unlike watching the last few movies in this franchise, I can actually say that I had fun seeing it.

If you do find yourself screaming at this movie, it won’t be out of exasperation or grief at another franchise that’s been driven into the ground.