Pan and Slam

Alien: Romulus

R 1h 59m

• Director
  • Fede Alvarez
• Writers
  • Fede Alvarez Rodo Sayagues Dan O’Bannon
• Stars
  • Cailee Spaeny
  • David Jonsson
  • Archie Renaux

by Jason Koenigsberg

The Alien franchise trudges on with Alien: Romulus, the seventh standalone Alien picture since the original in 1979, not including the disastrous AVP entries. The consensus is often that the Ridley Scott directed original and first sequel Aliens (1986) directed by James Cameron are the two best and the others are considered significant drops in quality with their ardent defenders. Now Fede Alvarez takes the helm, famous for his brutal and bloody horror movies like Don’t Breathe (2016) and attempts to breathe fresh life into this series that has lied dormant for seven years since Disney took over 20th Century Fox and is trying to make as much money as it can off that studios once profitable titles. Whether Alien: Romulus is a success or not depends on what the viewer ultimately wants from his Alien pictures. Alien: Romulus is thrilling for sure and definitely delivers solid scares with the adult alien xenomorphs, face-huggers, and even an effective new creepy monster alien hybrid that will probably make even the most cold blooded horror fans rejoice. However, what it does not have are any real original thoughts or visionary ideas that will propel the Alien saga further other than being a reliable slasher in space movie.

The film opens up as most of these movies do with a shot of the stars in outer space, and then slowly a ship floats into the foreground. Alien: Romulus is dark, very dark at times during the first half and then scenes of light feel a little extra special and tension filled when they do appear and let go of the low key lighting. The sound effects are all identical to the first film and so are the visual set design of the ships and later the alien habitats and grime all very reminiscent of the original which seems to be the key to Alien: Romulus making it difficult to fault some of the filmmaking decisions. It follows the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ mantra.

It also follows the same themes of the previous films. Very early on in Alien: Romulus we hear about the evils of greedy corporations willing to do anything including sacrifice human lives to save money and improve the company. The Weyland-Yutani corporate name and logo are scattered throughout the film. Allegedly the events in Alien: Romulus take place in between the first two films so playing on nostalgia as so many of these legacy sequels do seems like an obvious and safe choice. This movie does play it safe with its narrative choices but does not feel safe when it is trying to be scary. It goes for the jugular on the thrills and nobody can deny that Fede Alvarez cannot orchestrate thrills when he wants to. He takes his time gradually building suspense and developing characters which are mostly mundane other than a brother and sister pair which the less said about them the better for going into seeing this film. Previous Alien movies have received the criticism that they show smart people doing very dumb things on screen. Well Romulus is no exception here but that is necessary for a lot of thrillers to propel the plot and provide the wallop when an audience needs to jump in fear.

Alien: Romulus also continues on the franchises recurring theme of motherhood which was much more blatant in some entries than others. Even the first film named the computer running the ship ‘MUTHUR’ and so does Romulus. The motherhood theme and vaginal imagery run rampant this time around, especially in the latter part. There is also a synthetic android character (and another one that if any more is said would be a spoiler), but the main new android is sympathetic but still meant to symbolize the dangers of technology, especially AI.

In the end Alien: Romulus adds up to being a lot of the same but undeniably effective. It is good for those that crave familiarity and homages to the Alien franchise. They make sure to reference all of the previous six movies in some form and some of the homages are really intellectual and clever while some just feel like obligatory fan service. As stated before, Alien: Romulus is very low on originality and some of those references become plot points so they do assist the film as a whole. But they also prevent the film from taking any risks or veering into bold new territory for this series. That being said the thrills are genuinely frightening, the graphic violence and gory visuals are often unsettling. It builds with creepy atmosphere and stomps on your throat with intensity. Seven years ago I gave a negative review for Alien: Covenant mostly because it was the first Alien movie to not feel like it had an original voice or bring anything new to the series and instead felt like a remake of the original. The same thing could be said here but when Alien: Romulus goes for the kill, it hits the bullseye every time. This succeeds where Covenant failed and is worthy of its ticket price for indisputable creeps and thrills.