• Director: Fede Alvarez
• With: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu, Rosie Ede, Trevor Newlin, Robert Bobroczkyi, Ian Holm,
• Music by: Benjamin Wallfisch
• Duration: 2h
• Studio: 20th Century Fox, Scott Free Productions
• Platform: Disney+
• Rating: 7,5/10

Review:

Alien: Romulus has been one of those movies I have been looking forward to ever since I heard about it. And Fede Alvarez has made a name for himself after directing one of the Evil Dead movies, which was a bloodfest, and the first Don’t Breathe movie, which was a great thriller and a must see!

He now tackles this Alien movie and shows he is a big fan of the franchise. Not only does he connect the older movies (especially Alien and Aliens) to the prequel movies (Prometheus and Covenant) but he adds little reminders to the scene setting that will give fans go “see that? That’s a reference to…”

The story is situated between Alien and Aliens, in the year 2142. A group of young scavengers discover an abandoned ship marooned in space. They want to use it to fly to Yvaga, which they hear is a promised planet where they could live better lives than they do now, as miners and without much work or food.

So they set out. Among them is Rain and her synthetic “brother”, programmed by her father to serve and protect Rain. Once they arrive on the Romulus, they are soon in peril, attacked by strange beings, facehuggers, come to live after activating the ship. When they find another synthetic, Rook, broken and torn to pieces, they revive him and he tells them the Romulus has picked up an alien being in space (the one Ripley shot out of the Nostromo in the first Alien movie) and they discovered it has evolutionary prowess.

But Rook isn’t completely honest and soon the first victims fall. And the group of scavengers see their changes to go to Yvaga shrink. Before they know it, they have to battle the alien species on board and try to get out of the ship before it crashes into the belt of debris around the planet the Romulus was orbiting.

As I said, this movie has so many nods to the originals and even to the prequels, it’s a fanfest. But it has its issues as well. First issue is not enough Xenomorphs. They are discarded to quickly, to add a new species and focus on that one, unfortunately. Second, the movie doesn’t offer much new to the already told stories before. There’s no new adding to the lore of where the aliens came from or how they got in contact with humans or such things.

Otherwise, Alvarez knows how to add some great action scenes (facehugger chase, zero gravity scene…) and is definitely a good choice to make the movie, as he is clearly a big fan. (It’s in the little details).

I have one more remark, something that bugs me personally… Rook is portrayed by an AI-version of Ian Holm, without his family’s consent (I’m not 100% sure of this but I think I read something about this). I think they could have easily asked another actor to play Rook and no one would have bothered. Adding A.I. To the mix bugs me immensely. I am not a fan of A.I., I admit it. Adding that to a movie is cheap and requires less actors to be payed and especially if they don’t ask permission to use a deceased actor’s looks and voice (even an artificially added one) irks me. So please movie makers: try to be as genuine and real as possible. Don’t go for the easy way… don’t fall in the A.I. trap… (end rant!)

As a fan I definitely loved it but my expectations were a bit higher than I actually received. And yes, I still hope Blomkamp gets to make his version, even though I am well aware it won’t happen… such a shame!

One thing needs mentioning though: the soundtrack by Benjamin Wallfisch has the typical great Wallfisch vibe but payes tribute to Goldsmith’s and Horner’s soundtracks from Alien and Aliens. It has been on repeat a log ever since it was released. I think the soundtrack even works great without seeing the movie, because it is giving off a very atmospheric vibe. (Wallfisch has become a favourite of mine ever since he did the music for It en It, Chapter Two), so definitely give it a listen!