Alien: Romulus Is A Rehash Of Better Films
Fede Alvarez returns the Alien franchise to its horror roots with the admirable yet flawed Alien: Romulus. The eighth movie in the Alien series proves there’s still life in the franchise, even if originality is in short supply. Romulus is unsettling at times, with some genuine scares, but ultimately suffers from an identity crisis that hurts it in the second half.
Plays Out Like A Greatest Hits Album
Here’s some advice for future filmmakers: if you’re going to rip off other movies, make sure they’re good ones. Fede Alvarez may have borrowed from the first two Alien movies when making Alien: Romulus, but at least he stole from the best. It’s hard to make a bad movie when Alien and Aliens are your templates.
And make no mistake, Alien: Romulus is not a bad movie. Frustrating, perhaps, and derivative, but nowhere near bad. Other critics have described it as a “Greatest Hits,” movie, a criticism it’s hard to argue with. I would, however, point out that if you are going to cover someone else’s hits, there are worse artists than Ridley Scott and James Cameron to emulate.
Starts Out Strong
Alien: Romulus starts strong with no indication that it‘s anything but its own thing. The movie starts not in space but on one of Weyland-Yutani’s mining colonies. It’s a dystopian work camp with no natural sunlight and miners dropping like flies. Ripley stand-in, Rain (Cailee Spaeny), dreams of leaving the colony with her adopted synthetic brother Andy (David Jonsson) and escaping to the paradise planet Yvaga.
When the Weyland-Yutani company denies Rain’s request to leave the colony, she’s forced to find another way off-world. Conveniently, Rain’s ex, Tyler (Archie Renaux), learns of a derelict spacecraft in orbit over the planet and asks her and Andy to join him on a mission to ransack it. The three of them, along with some of Tyler’s other friends, reach the ship only to find out it’s not a ship at all; it’s a space station.
Alien: Romulus’ Identity Crisis
Specifically, the Romulus space station containing the remains of the xenomorph from Alien. It turns out Weyland-Yutani found the alien drifting among the wreckage of the Nostromo and retrieved it for experimentation. The group comes across a room full of facehuggers and you can probably guess what happens next.
From there, Alien: Romulus does a good job of handling the usual xenomorph mayhem, but the film has a severe identity crisis. The first half-hour or so leading up to the space station reveal is solid. Alvarez packs the movie with brilliant retro-futuristic visuals that give it an Alien vibe.
Between the fantastic practical effects and the likable characters, Romulus might honestly have the strongest beginning of any Alien film.
References Wear Out Their Welcome
But then the xenomorphs enter the picture, and Alien: Romulus switches from Alien‘s moody atmosphere to the gung ho action of Aliens. This is also when the film starts churning out references to earlier films. Some of these, like the scene where Tyler shows Rain how to use a pulse rifle, a la Hicks and Ripley in Aliens, are harmless homages.
Some references, however, are distracting and take you out of the movie. The scene where the camera zooms in on Rain’s Reeboks—the same style Ripley wore in Aliens—sticks out like a sore thumb. And then there’s the most baffling choice in the movie: slapping the late Ian Holm’s CGI face on another actor to portray an evil Ash-like android.
Some Noteworthy Creative Decisions
Ninety-nine percent of Alien: Romulus is a visual feast of practical effects right down to the animatronic xenomorphs. That makes the appearance of a tasteless digital zombie even more jarring. I can forgive many of the film’s shortcomings, but that one is almost a deal-breaker.
Meanwhile, one aspect of Alien: Romulus—the company’s motivation regarding the xenomorphs—deserves praise for its originality. For once Weyland-Yutani doesn’t want to use the aliens as weapons. Instead, they have a more sinister plan: combining Xenomorph and Human DNA to produce a hybrid organism capable of doing more work with fewer health complications.
Hard To Overlook The Irony
Like its predecessors, Alien: Romulus is a stealthy commentary on the horrors of capitalism. The fact that it’s the first Alien movie released by Disney—the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world—makes the criticism particularly ironic.
Ultimately, Alien: Romulus is a serviceable entry in the franchise that deserves to be seen on the big screen for its look alone. I will be very surprised if this movie isn’t nominated for a Best Visual Effects Oscar. Surprised and disappointed. Romulus is that stunning.
A Return To Form, But Far From Perfect
GFR SCORE
If you can get past all the references to earlier Alien films, then Romulus is one of the more entertaining entries in the series. It’s not a perfect film by any stretch, but it is a return to form for a series where the most recent chapters have been more about the nature of existence than scary monsters in space.
