Alien: Romulus – The Best Since Aliens?

I have been meaning to watch Alien: Romulus for ages, and it finally dropped on Disney+ the other day. It immediately leapt up my personal rankings to third place after the original two.

What is Alien: Romulus about?

A group of colonists are stuck in a mining colony on a grim planet that never sees daylight. It looks quite cool, though, and definitely gave me Blade Runner vibes (the jury is still out on whether it is officially linked, despite what some claim).

They hatch a harebrained scheme to fly up to a supposedly abandoned space station in orbit, purloin the cryo-pods that are probably stored there, and then fly off somewhere nicer that has sunshine and less mining and slavery. Fair enough.

The space station they fly to comprises two parts – Romulus and Remus. It was run by the “Company” – Weyland-Yutani – which is an entity that largely represents all immoral, money-at-all-cost corporations.

Unfortunately, the space station was decommissioned for a reason. It was full of aliens and had face-huggers in storage.

Was it any good?

Alien: Romulus is directed by Fede Álvarez, who has a decent pedigree directing horror films. It also stars Cailee Spaeny as Rain, who first impressed me in the film Civil War. So, it is off to a good start.

On the whole, I loved it. It had everything I could wish for from an alien movie. The characters were good, and the relationship between Rain and her android ‘brother’ Andy was well done and drove the movie. The action sequences were great, although there seemed to be more focus on the face huggers and the acid blood than on the fully grown Xenomorphs, but that is to be expected, given what the space station was for.

With any film like this, you know most of the characters are there to die. Ideally, in a gory or surprising way. And – surely this isn’t a spoiler – that is the case here. But most of them get established well enough that it doesn’t feel rushed, and their deaths have an impact.

There are a couple of spoilers that caused minor controversy that I won’t spoil here. One involved a character who kind of appeared before, which felt unnecessary and a bit off. The other, near the end, raised the film to a level I wasn’t expecting, and I loved it. It was a genuine WTF moment, which some may not like, but I thought it was great.

Generally, this was a well-made horror set in space, and I am all for that. It made me want to rewatch the originals and play Dead Space again. (Instead, I went to the pub, but the idea was there.)

I love the world of Alien, and this is a solid addition

I am a huge fan of the franchise, although my love has waned a lot with each successive movie. The original Alien and the sequel Aliens came out when I was too young to see them in the cinema, but I then watched both a dozen times each, maybe more. Aliens more than Alien – it just has more action.

I was annoyed from the start of Alien 3 when they killed Hicks and Newt, and the rest of the film was ok. Alien 4 I quite enjoyed, although it is a bit weird. Then Prometheus and Covenant happened, and while I wasn’t a huge fan (there were a billion plot holes and nonsensical bits), they were fine. They were certainly well-made, well-directed, and well-acted.

I’m not even going to bother talking about Alien versus Predator, as I have mostly forgotten what happened beyond there being pyramids at the South Pole, and the tagline was something like ‘Whoever wins – we lose’. SPOILER – it was a draw.

In summary – it the Alien franchise is all a bit hit-and-miss. But the first two were superb, and I loved them. I even read the Alien and the Aliens books by Alan Dean Foster, which are great. One of the things that fans loved about Alien: Romulus, but others seemed not to, was all the fan service, the easter eggs, and the retro look of the films. Some found it a bit much, but I found it absolutely perfect.

Final thoughts

So, after all that, I am happy to report that the Alien: Romulus is easily the best in the franchise since the first two. I don’t think it is better than them, but it is a solid addition to the franchise. After several attempts to take things in different directions, things are finally returning to where they should be. I hope it stays that way with the upcoming Alien: Earth TV show.

Recommended.

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