Alien Romulus Movie Review

Alien Romulus Movie Review

Fede Alvarez breathes new life into alien franchise with excellent new installment

4 and half out of 5

Fede Alvarez does for the alien franchise that Dan Trachtenberg did for the predator franchise by bring back to its roots infusing new life into it by combining Fedes vision with great call backs except one. The practical effects, production design, and CGI are impeccable bring the world of alien and aliens to life to immerse you and bring the horror and tension back in full force. The score and sound design as well suck you in and make you feel like you’re there with the characters.

While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. I love that Alvarez has gone back to basics with this film striping down to tension horror and the thing he does so well is getting you care about this ensemble of characters most of all Rain played brilliantly by Cailee Spaeny and Andy played by David Jonsson. Rain is such a great character you care for her immediately seeing her trying to get off the colony and getting screwed by the company she displays strength, vulnerability, and intelligence in a way that’s subtle yet dynamic at the same time. Andy is just as good of a character playing a synthetic David Jonsson plays 2 versions of the character so believable when playing either and you believe his connection with Rain which is so unique in an alien movie as Rain sees him as her brother which feels so caring then uneasy when Andy is the other version of the character. The rest of the cast are great too Isabelle Merced, Aileen Woo, Archie Renaux, and Spike Fearn are really good filling out this group of outcasts looking to get out of the unfortunate situation they are in  each have distinct  personalities and when it goes to hell I really felt for them and didn’t feel like cannon futter to me and I disagree with other critics who said they did.

Fede Alvarez directs the hell out of this movie being able to thread the needle of being alien while having elements of aliens to really rachet up the tension. The way he uses gravity in this movie is ingenious and clever which makes you go how did no one ever think of that or when Tyler shows Rain how to use the gun, they find on this abandoned ship it comes back to play in such a great way. Alvarez uses visuals in such a great way to scare the hell out of you for example he will have a character on one side of the frame then you would see the xenomorph slowly creep in on the other frame and make you squirm in your seat. Something that Fede did that was so impressive to me was how he was able to bring a certain character back and make it feel organic not shoehorned in just for fan service was fantastic and made me so happy as a fan.

Technically this film is off the charts starting with the cinematography by Galo Olivares is so well shot and is a big part of why the film can build the tension it does like when Tyler and Spike are stuck in a room with frozen face huggers, he lingers on them because you know what will happen when they get free. The production design in lockstep in this film is incredible you feel not only is this the world of alien but the world of the first 2 films and that is impressive feat to pull off the design of the ships, the labs, the clothes it’s so great. The gore, xenomorph costumes, and the face hugger puppets are all top notch that help the set pieces of this film come to life and when they do use CGI it is seamless and when you first see a chest burster come out you are both excited and terrified then the xenomorph shows up which was glorious. The score for this film by Benjamin Wallfisch is awesome and one of my favorite scores of the year it really amps up the horror in a lot of scenes and adds to the dreary dread of the film and emotional in certain spots.

The one thing about this movie that did not work for me is as much as I said Alvarez did a great job with the call backs that is not true for one moment which is when Andy after saving Rain from a xenomorph then says stay away from her you bitch like Ripley in aliens just landed with a thud wish he had cut that line out of the movie. Final thoughts on the film is I loved it and was so happy as an alien fan to say we got a film like this like prey is to predator while that one line didn’t work for me that is so small compared with the rest of the film and shows if you get a talented filmmaker who loves the material you will get more movies like this and less Madame Webs. I give this film a 4 and half out of 5.