“In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream.” The famous tagline of the Alien franchise, which started off high with two great entries in Alien and Aliens. But quickly has gone on a bumpy road as of recently with films in the franchise that vary in quality like Alien: Resurrection, Alien: Covenant, and Prometheus. But it appears its most recent film might be different.
The newest entry in the Alien franchise, Alien: Romulus has been widely praised as one of the best Alien films in recent years and as one of the best horror films of 2024. The film has also been praised for its suspenseful atmosphere, cinematography, effects, story, and characters. As an Alien fan, I was excited to hear this news considering the franchises recent track record. But after hearing all this praise and then seeing the film for myself, the question I’m still asking is if the film is as good as everyone says or is it just a reaction after all the other films in the franchise after Aliens?
To give a short summary of the plot, our main character Rain, played by Caliee Spaeny, is a Weyland Yutani worker who along with her android named Andy, played by David Jonsson, go together with a group of fellow space colonists to a supposably decommissioned space station in the hopes of scavenging it for cryo-pods in order to escape their planet which they’ve been forced to stay on. But after accidently reactivating the space station and giving Andy a new chip in order to access other areas, they find out that the station was actually a facility experimenting on the xenomorphs and now must find a way to escape. Plot wise its nothing too complex but it doesn’t need to be. It’s simple but effective, easy to follow, and its balances showing and telling the story. An example of how it balances them would be the scenes on the colony planet, they do good establishing what life is like for the average person on a Weyland Yutani planet, how the conditions are and how the company always screw’s them over.
The cinematography, music, and sound design for the movie is also very good and helped the story as well. An example of this is the opening scene, the usage of those three-help set up the mood and atmosphere of the film and helps make the scene more tense. The film uses a lot of practical effects in it works in its favor, not only do they look good but they help ground the film and adds a sense of realism. The xenomorph effects especially look good, they look more terrifying when done practically than with CGI like the other films. However, there are some downsides to the effects: the biggest one is the deepfake effect which leads us into the characters.
Rook is our android antagonist for the film but the main problem with him is the effect they use for his face. I appreciate that they went through the effort to make him look like Ian Holm’s since he wanted to come back to the franchise in some way but the deepfake they use is pretty bad. Depending on the angle and lighting, it could either look really good or really fake. Character-wise he’s alright, I like how he acts like the devil on Andy’s shoulder, pushing him to follow the will of the company but aside from that he mostly acts like Ash from the first movie. Rain is a serviceable protagonist, Cailee Spaeny turns in a decent performance and I like how she wins in the end by outsmarting the monster instead of brute forcing it. But without a doubt Andy is the best character in the film. He starts out as friendly guy only wanting to help Rain and her friends, but once he gets a new chip he turns into a cold, calculating machine more focused on completing the mission that Rook set out to do. David Jonsson plays Andy really well as both the nice guy and the morally grey machine. I cannot say that for the rest of the cast unfortunately which leads us into some of the critics I have for the film.
Aside from the three I mentioned, the rest of the characters are not memorable at all. They are either boring or forgettable. The only thing I remembered about one of them is how they died and that was spoiled by the trailer. One of the problems with this movie is how it handles its jump scares, they can either hit or miss in terms of how they use it. You could either get a good one like when Rook first comes back alive or a bad one like with the chestburster scene which as stated before was spoiled by the trailer so you know it was coming. Another problem with the film was the writing. After the first act it feels like some of the writing took a bit of a nosedive from there. Characters made stupid decisions, it felt like some convenance’s were made so the plot could happen, it sometimes relies on reference lines from the first two films with not the same impact, and some parts of the film were forgettable. Not to mention the finale was bloated to the point where you started to feel the running time.
Now with all that being said, it’s time to get to the original question, is Alien: Romulus as good as everybody says or is it a reaction to the other Alien films released? Honestly, I think it’s a bit of both. It does have its positives like the cinematography, effects, music, and Andy’s character, the negatives are kind of hard to ignore once you see the film again. Writing that sometimes doesn’t make sense, forgettable characters outside of the two main leads and the antagonist, a bloated finale, and some easy-to-see-coming jump scares. But aside from those points its still a decent movie to watch. It’s not as forgettable as Alien: Covenant, not as bad as Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, or as all over the place like Prometheus, but its not as good as Alien and Aliens. It falls somewhere in the middle. If you’re an Alien fan I do recommend watching it as its one of the first decent Alien movies we’ve gotten in years, but don’t go into the film thinking its going to be on par with the first two.
