#Alien Romulus Movie Review

[thedynamicuniverse]

Alien Romulus Movie Review + minor spoilers

Movie review for Alien Romulus

Announced Plot: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. The closer reality is: We have an “Alien” movie that combines all the memorable bits of the franchise into a loose homage- that’s actually pretty good. So, we have the classic 1979 Alien (directed by Ridley Scott)…

[superectojazzmage]

Just back from Alien Romulus and hoooo boy oh boy. Review/analysis.

Easily the best Alien movie since the first two, which isn't saying much, yeah, but it is legit a really cool and well-made movie, competing with Late Night With The Devil, Longlegs, and Cuckoo for title of my favorite horror movie this year.

In a lot of ways it's about harvesting the few good ideas from the post-2 movies that were squandered and doing them right, plus getting the series back to it's healthier roots, kinda the movie equivalent of someone doing physical therapy to get back in the saddle after an injury. This means it's not quite brand new ground like some may hope for and I've heard some people feel it gets a little derivative at points because of it. I can kinda agree and certainly understand that criticism, but I feel it does what it's aiming for really well and sets things up for future works to go in even crazier directions. Furthermore, it takes a lot of time to try and weld together the disparate post-2 movies in a way that brings the series back to a little coherency.

The atmosphere is really intense and cool, swinging between lovecraftian dread and build-up and high-energy chaos. The aesthetics and special effects are gorgeous, taking full advantage of the progress that technology has made since 2 plus really digging in to the used cassette future vibe of the older films. The characters are likable and actually intelligent (or at least understandable) in behavior like in the first two movies, so you care about what's happening to them instead of just waiting for them to get munched. The action and kills were really cool and creative, the cinematography in general was off-kilter in an awesome way - there's a definite attempt to make the movie feel claustrophobic and intimate. Fede Alvarez did a fantastic job in general, I'd love to see him do more with the series.

It REALLY cranks up the series' psychosexual, freudian, and sexual assault subtext, arguably to a point where it's just plain text. So if you're sensitive to stuff like that or if this is your first go at Alien, be warned for that.

More specific notes go under the header for spoilers. Highly recommend you go in as blind as you can.

Andy and Rain were wonderful leads, their dynamic was fantastic and Calie Spaeny and David Jonsson both turned in great performances. I direly hope they join the first two films' casts as "major" characters for the series going forward.

The effects to make Daniel Betts look like Ian Holms were quite possibly the one and only time the special effects failed. It looks very wonky, which is sad because Betts does a really good job copying Holms' mannerisms for Ash while still making Rook feel like a distinct character.

In addition to the usual themes of sexual unease, genetics, and parenthood, this movie adds in some really interesting themes of familial legacy, the rise of new generations, foundations, etc.. Andy and Rain are like Romulus and Remus of myth, orphaned and left to fend for themselves but growing into founders of a new age - both in-story with their carrying the XX121 substance and evidence of Weyland-Yutani's misdeeds to Yvaga and out-of-story with them being the protagonists of a new era for Alien. Likewise, the Offspring is the first example of an entirely new species, neither human nor alien but taking from the lineages of both through Kay and Big Chap, a Romulus-like founder of it's breed that will later bear fruit in Resurrection with the Ripley clone and Newborn.

I'm really not kidding when I say above that the psychosexual undercurrents are taken to the extreme here. This movie basically sees the ways the original film subtly pin-pricked at those themes, says "fuck that", and deliberately rubs it in your face in a way designed to make sure you can't ignore it. It wants you to be grossed out and to squirm in your chair and it knows exactly how to make it happen.

Alvarez noted in the lead-up to release that he took a lot of influence from Isolation and you can definitely see that in how he depicts the Xenomorphs and the general aura of the film. He further described it as a kind of halfway point between the first and second movies and you can also see that; it has the Lovecraft-style tension and horror of the first, balanced with the energy and action of the second, and it does a really good job finding a middle ground between Ridley Scott and James Cameron's styles while also doing it's own dance.

I mentioned way back at the start how the movie basically harvests the good ideas from 3, Resurrection, Prometheus, and Covenant and gives them the room they deserve while dumping the bad. It does that in both terms of themes/style and continuity/lore. Concepts that those movies bungled like xeno-human hybridism, the black goo, genetic engineering as a focus, and so on are done here more creatively and competently. Themes that those films tried and failed to tackle are handled with significantly more grace. It has the atmosphere and characterization of 3 but none of it's baggage and needlessly depressive tone. It has the body horror and weirdness of Resurrection without taking it to the zany, embarrassing areas that movie went. The effects and creativity of Prometheus and Covenant without any of their awful writing and clumsy messages. Alvarez takes on kind of an Al Ewing-esque "repairman" writing style here.

The Xenomorphs are absolutely deranged in behavior compared to most portrayals, attacking like either cruel sadists or raging chimps and rarely bothering to take hosts. I'm not sure if such a reading was intended, but I got the vibe that the idea is Xenos raised without a queen or hive grow to be basically sociopathic like how real world predatory animals grown without parental figures become feral and dysfunctional. Which would also explain a lot about how the Xeno in the original movie, Big Chap, acts there.

The Offspring's design is fucking wicked and I love it.

One of my few major criticisms is that Big Chap died off-screen instead of getting more to do. What was the point of having him be alive at the start if he wasn't gonna be used beyond a backstory point to set up the main story?

All in all, a very impressive effort and a great return to form for the series that I recommend highly.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Finished watching “Alien Romulus”. I’ll work on a full length review later but my immediate thoughts are:

1) Fede Alvarez should make a Resident Evil movie, the same way Ari Aster needs to make a Silent Hill movie.

2) It’s the 3rd best Alien movie I’ve seen. Aliens 1986 is still king, followed by Alien 1979.

3) While I respect the effort…it felt like a reskinned, updated version of the first movie. The two complainers, the captain, the synthetic, the person who cries all the time, the Ripley. It’s like how Evil Dead 2013 felt like a reskinned, updated version of the 1st Evil Dead (also another Fede Alvarez effort).

4) I feel like they tried so hard to make Cailee Spaeny’s character the new Ripley, but forgot the part that Ellen Ripley was a 3-dimensional character who could be both fun and serious. Cailee did fine, but her character’s writing felt pretty flat and dull. She was the least interesting character in the cast, especially since everyone else got more distinct personalities.

5) Andy was the true protagonist. He actually had an arc and he had the most interesting character development. And honestly, I think Fede Alvarez recognized that Andy would be more liked than Rain. He gave Andy the big hero moment, as well as Ellen Ripley’s, “Get away from her you bitch!” line. Andy, the MVP of the movie.

Overall…solid 7/10. It’s nice to actually enjoy an Alien movie, especially considering the state of the franchise.

[johannestevans]

Alien: Romulus: An Abortive Attempt at Homage to a Classic

Romulus started out promising, then proved itself an awful disappointment.

Review also on Cinemania.

The original Alien (1979) is far and away one of my favourite sci-fi films, one I’ve written about in the past, and I have a lot of affection for Aliens (1986) and even Alien 3 (1992), for all I feel it has its narrative flaws.

And then there are later additions to the original series; the less said about them, the better — later still, we see attempts at updating the series with sleek, shiny, lens-flared prequels and Michael Fassbender playing a mildly homophobic pastiche of a gay-coded eugenicist synth, these things replacing the original strong, complex writing in the original films.

I was honestly mildly into the premise of Alien: Romulus as a return to the original xenomorph rather than the Promethean nonsense, but that was all I knew about it going in — I went in with fresh eyes, having neither watched a trailer nor read any reviews.

In the first act of the film, there is an incredible return to the original aesthetics of Alien — without sacrificing the broader quality of set design, costuming, and film, there is an incredible recreation of not only the visuals originally displayed in 1979, but also the soundscape that accompanied those sets and mechanisms, and more than that, the haptics.

Every single button, dial, switch, and key in the original films looks as if you can reach out and touch it, and this incredible awareness of tactility is not only present in the machine and mechanic designs but in every other aspect of the set design. You can imagine how it might feel to touch everything in the film — feel the fuzz of static covering the screens in a sort of film, feel the trip of condensation on soaked engines, run your fingers over the texture of the walls, doors, grate floors, vents, even touch the aliens themselves. The slick, wet skin of the xenomorph, the slime slicking the segmented bodies of the facehuggers, the torn films of skin, the bubbling burn of their acidic blood — it all feels three-dimensional from the beginning, and that emphasis on the tactile and the textural is what makes the film so impactful.

It engages not just one’s emotional and mental state but all five of one’s senses, and in the beginning of Alien: Romulus, there is an attempt at recreating that physicality.

Not only are the original machines and their aesthetics replicated but there is a deep focus on tactility and certain sensory details in the mining colony our protagonist and her synth “brother” are trapped in — we see the gases and smokes and powders on the streets, see the machinery and all the trapped people working it, feel the cloying thickness of the polluted planet, see the near-literal sapping of colour from the whole of the planet by the miners.

The one tiny flicker of colour is, in fact, in the yellow canary in a modern cage, a fun little detail that emphasises how ancient the cruelty of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is — just as each of the miners on the colony is trapped in an inescapable contract, owned by the company and trapped within its artificial economy, that yellow canary represents the cruelty of the old mining towns that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation effortlessly recreates even halfway into the twenty-second century.

The initial hooks in the narrative are planted here — we meet Rain as an orphan, and we see the complex familial dynamic between her and her adoptive brother, Andy. Andy is introduced from the out in the autistic-coded manner of any synthetic within the series, malfunctioning and vulnerable as a result, and Rain feels deeply about protecting him and protecting their adoptive relationship, and yet for all, Rain seems to be the primary caretaker between the two of them, Andy’s prime directive is to care for Rain.

Different Alien films have explored the varying levels of humanity for synths — I’ve spoken disparagingly about David and how he repeats certain homophobic tropes in sci-fi that go all the way back to the likes of Space Odyssey, but obviously, there’s the contrast between Ash as a villainous representative of the company’s violence — upholding its aggressive hierarchy and the violence within that — and the likes of Bishop, who is far less sexually driven if not arguably emasculated in the Aliens film, contrasting the hypermasculinity of the space marines; contrasting these again is the character of Annalee Call, who has the most agency and personality of the synths, and seeks to make use of that liberty.

One might think, introduced to Andy and his immediate familial connection to Rain, that the film intends to explore new dynamics for a synth — not only is Andy introduced alongside Andy as her adoptive brother, but he’s also the only Black member of the cast, and the only Black synth we’ve seen as a main character within the series, and one might think this would introduce more consideration as to his position as a synth as well.

The introduction of the rest of the party is rushed and, frankly, bizarre — while the central conceit of their reaching out to Rain makes sense, being as how they need Andy’s ability to speak to a Mother system on the decommissioned station in orbit above them, what is not firmly established is Rain’s connection to these people, or what their actual relationships with one another consist of.

Certain expository details are dropped in, that they’ve been distant from one another since Rain’s father died, but it’s evident that Rain does not know these people well for the most part, nor vice versa.

Throughout the film, attempts are made to emphasise the intimacy and closeness between Rain and Tyler, with them holding hands with one another and sharing significant looks or non-verbal communications, but the film doesn’t wish to expand this into a romantic connection nor expand on it as a sibling dynamic either.

The relationship has these hallmarks of being close or important, having these levels of friendship and physical intimacy, but there’s never any verbal acknowledgement of the closeness between Rain and Tyler, nor commentary made by the other characters, and it makes their interpersonal dynamics feel almost random.

This isn’t unique to Rain and Tyler, of course — all of these relationships seem similarly slapdash and thrown together, with no consideration as to their wider ramifications or the implications of those dynamics. Kay is pregnant because of “some guy”, and no further time or effort is given to fleshing out the whys and wherefores of her pregnancy; Bjorn obsessively seems to despise Andy and acts as if he’s never seen or met him before, but at the same time is a dick to every single other character, and no further details or complexity to his character background is added in; Navarro is an excellent pilot but for some reason is very attached to Bjorn, and their relationship seems a lot more highly sexed, but not… anything else.

These characters conduct themselves, in short, like they were AI-generated for someone’s worst nightmare of a YA novel — they’re in their twenties, but they act like young teenagers; they’re theoretically adults with complex dynamics with one another, but everything about their personalities seem vapid and shallowly written.

The only character who’s given any depth or apparent inner turmoil is Rain, and that makes less and less sense as time goes on. Rain feels a great deal of loyalty to and a need to protect Andy, and at the same time, Bjorn reveals that Rain was never going to bring him to the Yvara system, and Rain doesn’t argue the point or claim otherwise.

She seems overcome with guilt about this fact, and everybody argues she shouldn’t think much about any feelings Andy might have because he’s a synthetic — Andy himself seems to have no emotional response to this and immediately accepts this as in line with his prime directive.

Is this expanded on as the film goes on?

No, not remotely.

Andy’s software is apparently updated when he’s given the disc from Rook’s body, and this updates his physical mobility, repairs the damage to his verbal processor, seems to improve his concentration, overwrites his prime directive, and then…

Somehow, it goes away again as soon as the disc is removed? In another film, the introduction of the disc to Andy’s processing might have added some level of inner turmoil or inner battle for him, his broken processors engaging with the attempts to remotely update his AI and software, especially given that this is aboard a decommissioned station, but no such turmoil is introduced.

The disc temporarily makes Andy more useful, but while it introduces a risk that he is acting in “the best interests of the company” as opposed to protecting Rain, he still does protect Rain and her friends as best he can — the only sacrifice he makes is with Kay, who is already immediately under threat; Navarro goes from being infected to being dead almost immediately, and Bjorn is similarly very quickly doomed.

What’s the point of these sacrifices? What is their narrative purpose other than people dying on screen? What do they represent?

Why is Navarro’s death so immediate, rather than giving the xenomorph its usual extended incubation period? What does her death actually do, emotionally, to any of the other characters, bar Bjorn, who was already angry about his mother dying because of a synth? Does Bjorn now change his feelings and further blame Andy, or feel differently toward him?

No.

No one’s feelings about anything change in the course of the film whatsoever. We might as well be watching a puppet show.

Even later in the film, Rain approaches Andy after his original directives have been restored, and rather than saying, “Now, your prime directive is to look out for yourself,” she says, “your prime directive is to look out for us” — so what has she actually learned? She isn’t extending Andy any further humanity, self-sufficiency, or autonomy.

She’s paying lip service to the idea that Andy should consider the two of them as a unit, and we know that that’s only talk because scant minutes later, we see her abandon Andy on the floor whilst preserving her own life.

This is the core flaw of this film — it repeatedly attempts to call back to moments in the original Alien film, pays homage to certain lines, dynamics, or scenes, but doesn’t actually seem to understand what the point of any of those scenes for, and thus, in recreating them, makes a pastiche of a film without meaning.

I actually really appreciated the approach to the xenomorphs by the cast of characters initially — using the cryogenic fuel to freeze a facehugger’s tail and thus paralyse it was a creative and interesting solution to a problem. The thought behind it is slightly lateral, and for a film coming out fifty years after its original iteration, it makes complete sense that you would introduce new characters coming up with different solutions to the original problems in the franchise — and it’s all the more interesting to create new solutions that use resources available to the original cast.

This lateral thinking becomes somewhat less interesting — not to mention less sensible — when it comes to raising their ambient temperature in order to render themselves invisible to the facehuggers. It’s all very well liking the Alien videogames, but dropping yourself to the level of videogame logic doesn’t really play well for cinema.

Why introduce the temperature-controlled space suits minutes ago if not to use them for this solution? Why set the ambient temperature at their own body temp and then warn them not to sweat when, of course, they’re going to sweat in 28-degree heat, even were they not anxiously moving at moderate speed down a crowded corridor in the dark?

Why then continue on a pointless conversation on fucking loudspeaker whilst surrounded by facehuggers?

There’s nothing wrong with having flawed characters or even stupid characters in your film — in fact, having stupid characters can make a film very fun. God knows that in the original Alien, Brett and Parker being goofy as shit creates some of the best parts of the movie.

But your characters can’t just be randomly stupid and make random decisions. What is driving their thought processes and decision-making? Yes, in that scene, Tyler is extremely emotional about having been cut off from his sister… but why do Rain and Andy both just let his idiocy unfold? Is Rain okay with dying because this man doesn’t know how to silence his headset for a second and take this call in thirty seconds once they’re not surrounded by facehuggers? Does Andy think that allowing this sort of nonsense is somehow best for the company at this moment?

Every single character in this film is obscenely and strangely passive. None of them seem to make active decisions or considerations about anything in their lives — they only react to unfolding situations or respond to ways other characters act upon them, and they only act one step ahead and no further.

Case in point, all that business with the acidic blood — I appreciate that someone wanking behind the camera evidently thought this would look cool, but it’s just silly, and for what? So that blood can burn through the station in all directions instead of one? So that there can be a long, drawn-out scene where the infamously quick, intelligent, and physically resistant xenomorphs are gunned down like exploding cans on a farmyard fence?

So that characters can tremblingly quote iconic lines from the original film and not quite figure out how to make the delivery land in the context they’re now delivered?

And as for Kay’s pregnancy…

Introduced so early in the film, it would make sense for it to be the true crux of the film’s core philosophy, and yet Kay is lying down and having naps for half of the film. She has absolutely 0 character beyond being sad and a bit of a damsel for Rain and Tyler to each want to protect — Weyland-Yutani, throughout the Alien franchise, treat victims of the xenomorph as little more than incubators for their weapon, and here, our filmmakers treat Kay as little more than an incubator for their plot twist.

And as for that plot twist, it’s…

Well, again. It’s stupid.

The introduction of Rook as a synth is in poor taste — Ian Holm’s image is terribly animated, and the CGI used to animate the synth seems incredibly out of place compared to every other aspect of imagery in the film. At the very least, they might have attempted to reuse or recreate the original film’s animatronics and puppetry — Holm’s image was least poorly recreated when appearing on screens, and it might have been a better choice, if they were so insistent on profiting from the ghost of a man’s corpse, to at the very least have it be a version of Ash’s original personality uploaded to the computer as a special authority on the xenomorph and its species, rather than simply being another science officer wearing a parody of his face.

Attempts were made, I think, to replicate Ash’s manner of speaking in the original films — evidently, this was not proofread or workshopped in any way because, particularly in the third act of the film, every piece of Rook’s dialogue was bizarrely stunted and sounded rather more like an extra from the Big Bang Theory than a character in a serious piece of sci-fi.

Rook wants Kay to be injected with the xenomorph DNA, this being the best thing for the company (How? How is that the best way to preserve those samples? Why not wait for her to get to a station so she can be experimented on under controlled settings? If Rook is a different character to Ash and lacks his memories, then he doesn’t have Rook’s fetishistic focus on the advancement of the human species, so what motivates his actions?), and then her pregnancy advances rapidly and immediately, with an explosive birth.

It’s unfortunate that this film repeatedly rushes through scenes of violent birth and body modification because those are the core engines of fear and dread within the Alien films.

The xenomorph isn’t just a random scary monster — she is frightening because of how she can infect, take over, and use your body for her reproduction, and a greater horror is laid over this threat by the fact that Weyland-Yutani seeks to profit from this reproductive cycle and are willing to allow you to be sacrificed.

Birth itself, reproduction itself, is repeatedly under threat from authorities within Weyland-Yutani because attempts are being made to modify, streamline, and profit in the most extreme ways possible from the reproductive process, and especially given that these young people all exist under contracts that keep them trapped, one would think that Kay’s greatest fear would perhaps be that the foetus inside her might be or become the property of Weyland-Yutani.

Kay doesn’t seem aware of this or even consider it, even though it’s ultimately what happens in the mutation of her baby.

And as for that baby, again, what’s the point of it?

Cynically, the point is clear — they wanted a new, slightly different monster to try to profit from because they’ve stuffed their film full to the brim with dozens of xenomorphs and facehuggers and no longer fully understand how to create the atmosphere that makes those monsters and their ecosystem frightening, so the solution is a new monster!

It was really obvious that they were going to go for a breastfeeding thing with the monster’s approach of Kay, her horror whilst scrambling back, and its gaze on her chest, and I think it was a cop-out for them to go with the blood-sucking instead, but honestly, I suppose it was a surprise they even implied the lactation at all. It just seems like too original and too horrifying an idea to be embedded in such a mess of a film.

At every juncture, this film just feels undeveloped and unplanned — barring the atrocities with Ian Holm’s CGI puppetry, the film visually has a lot going for it.

While the facehuggers are not always super well-articulated, their movement was haunting and always quite threatening; the xenomorphs really had that wet feel that made them so disgusting and so visually iconic in the original films, and yet, again, for what purpose?

The camera repeatedly zooms in for shots of the xenomorphs screaming in the corridor, but not to serve the narrative or any sense of tension — as with virtually every other choice in the film, it feels utterly random.

Ultimately, I spent the last hour of watching this film in the cinema fidgeting and frustrated because nearly every scene felt strangely disconnected from the last, with little to no consideration as to the broader narrative or themes at play — I remember having a similar experience watching Cobweb (2023) a few years ago, which is a pastiche of various /r/NoSleep tropes that ultimately goes nowhere and has no idea or direction of its own.

Like so many remakes, this film tries desperately to copy the most iconic lines and moments from its source material but makes no attempt to update its ideas with new context, its own ideas, its own motivations, and the result is as hollow and empty as any film ever gets.

These kids want to leave their mining colony and strike out as autonomous by stealing not only equipment but also themselves out of their contracts, but as soon as they leave the planet, no talk or consideration is made of that fact.

A woman starts out pregnant in the movie and births a monster, which dies immediately after being born.

A Black synth is introduced as being of familial importance to the white MC, is dismissed as being just an object, is finally given permission to care about himself as well as her, and then is, immediately after, dismissed as just an object.

What was the point of any of it? What was the meaning of any of it? Where, in this entire film, was there a signal coherent and considered plotline that actually had any sort of thematic end goal?

I can’t believe a film we went to see on an afternoon whim could be so disappointing, but hey. At least they accomplished something after that mess.

[alarming-prism]

she xeno on my morph til i caustic pussy juice

[kat-movies]

Alien: Romulus

I am a gigantic fan of the Alien franchise, and something about me is that I am actually a giant fan of Prometheus (which got a lot of unnecessary hate in my opinion). Anyway, when I was watching this movie, I absolutely fell in love with it. I thought it was a great addition to the Alien franchise that added a lot to the universe, while also keeping the classic "Alien movie vibe" that everyone loves.

First of all, it had some great moments individually, but I loved the references to each and every one of the alien movies. I love when a franchise realizes that they should probably try and cater to the fans when they are creating something new. Adding those moments just makes the movie way more enjoyable to die-hard fans like me. It also adds a lot to the franchise because you can start to think about how this might connect to the other movies, since they referenced those movies in it.

Not only did this movie cater to the fans by adding all these references, but they also added something new that we haven't really seen before. This might be a spoiler so be prepared if you still haven't seen it, but the humanoid alien at the end of the movie (similar to the alien in Alien: Resurrection) was probably one of the scariest designs I've seen in this franchise in years. Now the xenomorphs have never really freaked me out, and when you watch all the movies you sort of get used to them, but this weird freaky thing was FREAKY. I did not want to look at it any longer, and it had one of the craziest jump scares that I just wasn't prepared for. Anyway, I loved this movie, and I wouldn't mind seeing more Alien movies with this storyline.

-kat <3

[kanefromalien]

i’m in the middle of watching right now, but would you all believe me if i told you i just burst into tears of excitement about this 🫣 I WAS ONLY HOPING HE WOULD BE MENTIONED I DIDNT ACTUALLY KNOW THEY WERE GONNA

[mx-piggy]

Happy Halloween!

So, over the past month, I've been working pretty hard on writing reviews for my website. In particular, I've been writing about movies that are horror-based or otherwise Halloween-appropriate. If you like movies, then you might like the stuff I write. And, if you like horror movies, you might like the stuff I've written this month.

This morning, I published a review of The Substance, and it's a piece I'm really proud of and that I would love for people to read. I'll be honest, it's not actually so much a review as it is an analytical piece about the movie. If you like The Substance, please consider giving it a read!

If you haven't seen The Substance, then I have reviewed some other movies, too. If you like any of the movies listed below or if you would be interested in reading my thoughts about them, please consider giving them a read.

Alien: Romulus

Coraline

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Speak No Evil

Never Let Go

The First Omen

Imaginary

If you're not that into horror, I've got reviews of other movies, too.

If movies aren't your thing, there's still stuff on there that might be of interest to you. I've got a decent amount of original poetry for you to read. I'll link my favourites below!

Nocturnal

There's A Man in the Window

One of Many Afternoons at Spoons

Earlsway

If you end up reading any of my work (thank you!) then please consider reblogging this post so that I could potentially get more eyes on my site. Don't get me wrong- I love to write regardless of whether anyone reads my stuff. But, it sure is nice when people engage with something I've worked hard on. And, if you like my work enough to want to keep up with what I post, please consider subscribing (it's free!)

[eddiescorner]

Alien: Romulus Review

It's ok.

A decent thriller set in the Alien universe. Which make it WAY better than bad films like "Prometheus" or the pile of hot garbage that was "Alien: Covenant".

If you have seen the movie "Don't Breathe" from the same director, this is basically the same plot, only in space and with a xenomorph as the antagonist.

Fans of the videogame "Alien: isolation" will be happy, the whole aesthetic of the game is crearly a huge influence in the set designs, the way the small corridors are iluminated and the camera angles. Even some elevators, ventilator shafts and control panels are exact copies from those in the game.

A highlight among the actors is David Jonsson, who is really good playing an android with two very different personalities

There are some very forced references to the rest of the franchise, including someone saying the famous "stay away from her, you bitch" line.

But at least the alien is scary again.

[ratleyland]

This movie was much better than I expected it to be.

It paid homage to the original movie... but keep things fresh, scary and exciting at the same time.

[atxsubpunk]

A Quiet Place: Day One

I've seen all three of the "Quiet Place" films, and while I don't remember much of the first two my instinct is to say that "Day One" is the best of the lot. It's certainly the bleakest. I appreciate post-apocalyptic films that focus on characters managing the new world order (Nausicaä / Mad Max) instead of showing characters trying to put the world to rights (I Am Legend). The two leads are great. I expected that from Lupita Nyong'o but Joseph Quinn was very much her equal. It was actually his character that had my attention as the movie progressed. Can he be trusted? Why is he doing the things he's doing? What does it say about me that when I see simple kindness and decency in a stranger that my suspicions rise and I start surveying the landscape for a melee weapon? Joseph Quinn's traumatized facial expressions made for some of the most memorable images of the film. It's rare to see a man terrified without screaming, demolished but still functioning. It reminded me of David Johnson's performance in "Alien: Romulus." Not because Johnson's character was terrified, but because 99% of said performance came entirely from his face and communicated more any amount of dialog could. I also want to give props for the 99 minute runtime. That may sound like a backhanded compliment but it isn't. The secret to making a good movie is knowing exactly what kind of movie you should be making, and these filmmakers understood that. That's an accomplishment.

[granitefilmreviews]

Full of genuinely scary moments and incredible practical effects, Alien: Romulus offers a visually stunning return to form for the franchise that was perfectly directed by Fede Álvarez.

[melongrrrl]

I was a little disappointed by the new Alien, but one thing I can't complain about AT ALL was David Jonsson. Incredible performance, and now I need to go see everything this man has ever been in.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Okay, the more I think about it, I think the main reason why I wasn’t that impressed with “Alien Romulus” was how safe it felt. It didn’t hurt the franchise, but I felt like I could live without it. It doesn’t really add anything to the Alien series, apart from Xeno-Baby. Also, it felt like Fede Alvarez just redid the first movie but with better special effects. That’s technically not a bad thing, but I was definitely thinking to myself in the theater that the movie felt lacking in substance.

And sure, the scares may be well done, but it’s also nothing new. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the, “We have to stay quiet or else the monsters will hear us” shtick in like 10 other horror movies. Also, lowering the temperature so that the monsters can’t see you is straight up Tremors 2. Once again, just because it’s cliched doesn’t mean it’s bad. But it does make you feel like you’ve seen this shit already.

If I had to make a comparison to a similar series, it’s the “Predators” (2010) of the Alien franchise. Not bad, not great, doesn’t really add much to the series…it’s just very safe and passable.

(EDIT: I take back what I said about Xeno-Baby. Even that’s not new since that’s just the Newborn from Alien Resurrection)

[grayrazor]

Alien: Romulus is an incredible movie that I’m not sure I want to watch again. Kind of a mix of the ultracaffinated pacing of Aliens with the more disturbing imagery of Resurrection or Prometheus. I was literally trembling when I left the theater.

There were a few references that I found a little excessively cute, but not to a Solo: A Star Wars Story level or anything. Was really surprised that they canonized the “Species XX-121�� name for the Alien from the recent TTRPG.

Really nailed that retro sci-fi vibe, sometimes feeling as much like Blade Runner or Star Wars as Alien. Probably just felt that way to me because we haven’t seen much of colony life in this setting before, aside from the few glimpses of Hadley’s Hope in Aliens.

[bondedcloud]

ALIEN : ROMULUS

ALIEN: ROMULUS delivers an exhilarating experience at the cinema, with Fede Álvarez skillfully steering the franchise back to its claustrophobic, walled-in horror roots, and more flawless predecessors.

The relationship between Rain and Andy is the core of the film. Callee Spaeny and David Jonsson are the standouts here. Rain (Cailee Spaeny) shines as a badass protagonist, bringing a fresh, powerful presence like Ripley, anchoring the film with a strong performance that holds it together. Andy (David Jonsson) is also exceptional, portraying a synthetic android with multiple personalities that adds depth to the narrative.

Interestingly, the scariest part of the film isn't the Xenomorph itself, but the eerie exploration of the spaceship, which reminded me of the unsettling atmosphere in the Alien: Isolation video game; an influence that director Fede Alvarez clearly drew from. The Facehuggers, crawling and leaping onto human faces, were genuinely creepy and gave me goosebumps on the screen. Xenomorph is once again truly terrifying. The real tension begins when Rain, Andy, and Tyler enter the Romulus space station.

Setting aside the film itself, the production design, combined with the work of creature designers, puppeteers and VFX artists ensures that the Xenomorphs and the bloodshed feel authentic and menacing. Meanwhile, the cinematography, lighting and sound design pay a fitting tribute to the first two installments. It's beautifully filmed with impressive practical effects and a captivating horror storyline that delivers perfectly.

Overall, I think Romulus has reached the same level of sheer terror as the first two classics, Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), with its mix of jump scares, suspense, and heart-pounding moments. Alien: Romulus remains as one of my favourite top three alien's film.