Review: Alien: Romulus
Horror director Fede Álvarez brings his penchant for visceral gore to the latest entry in the Alien franchise while also completely nailing the look and style first established in the 1979 Ridley Scott classic.
Cailee Spaeny stars as Rain, an orphaned miner living on a desolate Weyland-Yutani outpost with her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), an android reprogrammed by Rain’s father to be her surrogate brother and protector. Desperate to leave the outpost for a more idyllic planet called Yvaga, Rain joins her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux), his sister Kay (Isabela Merced), his brother Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Bjorn’s girlfriend Navarro (Aileen Wu) on a salvage mission to a seemingly derelict Weyland-Yutani outpost orbiting above the planet, with the promise that the equipment they collect will get them to Yvaga. Once on board the station, the group soon learns that horrific experiments are being conducted involving the Xenomorphs, and the deadly creatures are unleashed once the station power is reactivated. After the sometimes bizarre lore building of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Alien: Romulus feels like a welcome return to basics, with a mix of the horror of Alien and the action of Aliens. There is quite a bit more Prometheus involved than you might expect, especially in the movie’s second half, but most of the movie feels like a throwback to the original two classics. That’s especially true in how the movie looks, with Álvarez nailing almost every aspect of the universe and making it feel perfectly in line with what he saw from the earlier films in the franchise. The lighting, dated technology, the look of the spaceships, the station, and everything else nails the aesthetic Scott and James Cameron established.
The Xenomorphs themselves are also more violent and more disgusting, with a Xenomorph coming out of a blatantly yonic (thanks Google!) looking cocoon and the effects of their acid blood and razor-sharp tail and claws being used in new, deadly ways. Some extremely clever sequences are unlike anything we’ve seen in the franchise, including a tense sequence where some of the group has to try and stealthily make their way through a room full of Facehuggers and another involving zero-G, which is fantastic. There’s some pretty blatant fan service that involves the de-aging effect that Disney has been using in movies like the last Indiana Jones and Star Wars. This is the most extensive use of it yet, having a version of a character from the franchise appear as a significant character. While I didn’t mind, I can also see how someone might find it off-putting or empty fan service that could have been a new, original character.
Cailee Spaeny and David Johnsson carry the movie with their relationship, and you care about the fate of both of them as the film progresses. Jonsson, in particular, really gets a chance to shine as Andy goes from the child-like brother to Rain in the beginning to a more cold and logical android when he receives a Weyland-Yutani upgrade sometime in the film to allow him to open up areas of the station. The movie has some of that Prometheus/Alien: Covenant and even Blade Runner-style commentary about what is real and what it means to be human or not. Isabela Merced also deserves praise for the amount of abuse she goes through in the movie, getting thrown out of ships, stabbed through the chest, and even worse as the film goes on. The rest of the cast is mostly cannon fodder for the Xenomorphs, and they get an archetype as a character before their fate is sealed.
Fede Álvarez delivers arguably the third-best movie in the Alien franchise, returning to the aesthetics of the first two classic movies in the series while providing some unique and exciting set pieces that let the Xenomorphs be terrifying in new ways. There may be too much fan service for some people, but Alien: Romulus is a visceral, gory, and fun time and well worth checking out in theaters.
