Alien: Romulus (2024, dir. Fede Álvarez)

by | Aug 16, 2024

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 119 mins

UK Distributor: 20th Century Studios

UK Release Date: 16 August 2024

WHO’S IN ALIEN: ROMULUS?

Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Fede Álvarez (director, writer), Rodo Sayagues (writer), Walter Hill, Michael Pruss and Ridley Scott (producers), Benjamin Wallfisch (composer), Galo Olivares (cinematographer), Jake Roberts (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A young crew is confronted by a terrifying extraterrestrial being on an abandoned ship…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON ALIEN: ROMULUS?

The simple appeal of Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking 1979 sci-fi horror Alien was that it was, in essence, a slasher movie in space. It had everything you’d expect from a typical slasher, from the deadly killer making their way through a handful of identifiable victims (often in gruesomely violent ways) to the mandatory “final girl” that was left to live with the horror they’ve just experienced, but its deep-space setting made the action far more claustrophobic and intense than your typical Friday the 13th or Halloween flick.

That simplicity eroded quite quickly when the original film spawned its own franchise. With the exception of James Cameron’s Aliens, which despite its expanded plot still maintained a decent enough simplicity, nearly all follow-ups became lost in their own pretence, trying to dive deeper into the philosophy and in-universe lore (which even Scott was guilty of with his prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) but ultimately failing to recapture the simple in-out appeal that kicked off this whole series.

It’s something that even director and co-writer Fede Álvarez seems to recognise, and with his franchise offering Alien: Romulus he manages to finally, after all these years, bring the Alien franchise back to basics with a solid new entry that reclaims both the suspense and – yes – the simplicity that made the original film so memorable.

Taking place between the first two films, our main crew consists of a young group stuck on a desolate deep-space mining colony, where sunlight is practically non-existent, and holiday time is dependent on the years that have been spent working. The crew consists of (in order of importance) orphaned miner Rain (Cailee Spaeny), her malfunctioning android surrogate brother Andy (David Jonsson), Rain’s ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux), his sister Kay (Isabela Merced), their volatile cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and their friend Navarro (Aileen Wu). They discover an abandoned space station hovering above their colony that might contain the resources they need to escape their miserable lives once and for all, but this being an Alien film, it’s not hard to guess what extraterrestrial horrors may be awaiting them onboard.

In a way, though, that is partly what makes Alien: Romulus a nice breath of fresh air within this franchise. After years of enduring so much unnecessary building of the mythos, particularly in the last couple of Scott-directed entries, it’s nice to see this series get back to simply being the kind of space-set slasher movie that it started out as. Álvarez, along with co-writer Rodo Sayagues, quickly establishes both the stakes and the threat so that the viewer isn’t completely lost, while most of the characters – who this time are actually around the right age to be stalked and killed by your average slasher movie villain – are identifiable enough for you to actually care about why they’re even floating straight into danger in the first place. The director also crafts some suspenseful set-pieces around the straightforward narrative, including one that all but directly recalls Álvarez and Sayagues’s previous horror hit Don’t Breathe, which are brought to life by some impeccable production and sound design, along with practical effects that look genuinely great, especially in today’s CG-heavy blockbuster environment.

The simplicity of Alien: Romulus is its greatest asset, for as in the original Alien film it focuses on building upon the intensity and genuine terror of the moment, while also lightly hinting at much larger forces at play without going too deep into the backstory of it all. As a result, this film is perhaps the most frightening since that first film, for Álvarez creates a growing suspense as our young protagonists – whom the likes of Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson excel as – have one horrifying encounter after another with these dome-headed creatures, with the filmmaker also tapping into the characters’ more internal fears of living the same overworked lives as their now-gone parents once did. At times, and especially during its far-reaching climax, you really do feel like you can’t breathe in this growingly scary situation, a feeling not felt since John Hurt had the mother of all chest pains, which makes this film’s mission to recapture the overall tone and aesthetic of the original movie, while still working pretty well as its own thing, a strong success.

What isn’t successful, though, is whenever the film feels the urge to become a series of fan-servicing Easter eggs and references towards the rest of the franchise. At times, it will feel like a greatest-hits compilation with repurposed lines (delivered somewhat forcefully by figures for whom such a line feels out of character) and a couple of familiar soundtrack beats. Worst of all, there is a major character who pops up that is near-fully CG rendered to look exactly like a certain legacy figure, long after the original performer of said figure has passed away, and not only do the graphics used to create this character look like they better belong in one of the Alien video game spin-offs than in a film that is otherwise filled with great practical effects, but there is also absolutely no reason for this character to be an almost-exact replica of this other past figure, other than to score some easy nostalgia points from the audience.

Luckily, whenever it’s focusing on being the kind of simplistic and intense sci-fi slasher that launched this franchise in the first place, Alien: Romulus succeeds at pumping fresh acidic blood into this series.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Alien: Romulus is a suspenseful and refreshingly simplistic return to form for the franchise that sees director and co-writer Fede Álvarez deliver a strong sense of terror amid a range of impressive practical effects and empathetic characters, even when the film feels the unnecessary need to reference its own legacy.

Four of of five stars

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