Alien: Romulus review

Director: Fede Alvarez

Run Time: 1 hour 59 minutes

Alien: Romulus is a solid entry for the Alien franchise. Not coming for the top spot of most fan rankings, but also not deserving of last place as Alvarez’s entry handles its place on the timeline well. Beginning after the events of Alien, audiences learn more about the Weyland-Yutani Corporation workers and crew than usual. This cast is young, but just as burnt out on the lies and misgivings of The Company as previous employees, but space does not discriminate. 

In the year 2142, young adults on a mining colony make a plan to use one of their ships to travel to a research facility off-world and hijack pods that will allow them to survive the trip to planet Yvaga. They have little control over their destiny on the colony, as required work hours are unfairly increased randomly.

Thanks to Rain (Cailee Spaeny) android Andy (David Jonsson), reprogrammed by her father, the group can easily gain access to the facility and all the supplies they need with his software. They immediately run into logistical issues as soon as they arrive on Romulus, struggling to gain access to the pods, stay alive, and continue on their journey.

Jonsson is the stand out actor, for his characterization, physicality, and delivery. Spike Fearn plays a convincing and believable jerk in Bjorn, butting heads with Andy early on, but the remaining cast is relatively lackluster. They work very well as an ensemble though. Facehuggers and Xenomorph’s receive play time and audiences can tell that the director wanted to emphasize practical and blended CGI.

The film continues the franchise trend of blending sci-fi with horror, particularly using delayed jump scares effectively. Each scare feels purposeful, mainly because they don’t take place when audiences might expect. Rather than scare when a character walks around a corner, the director instead chooses to hold back momentarily and introduce a scare 15 to 20 seconds later. The body horror in the film is also effective and not merely used for shock.

The aliens and lead usually garner the attention in this franchise, but the fan-favorite for the last few weeks is clearly Andy. The casting of a Black actor as an android with dated software that can be updated, shifting the android’s strength, logic, and personality, is ripe for commentary. But the film spends most of its time exploring the themes developed in previous films, namely gender, sex, biology, and spirituality. Alien: Romulus also continues the exploration of colonialism and industrialization, and as a result, Andy’s existence as the only character of his skin tone feels like a missed opportunity in a film that’s aware of what it must balance. 

Andy is not an offshoot or short lived character, and to consider it from another angle, androids have always been central to the franchise. So the introduction of an android, amid characters who are mostly of the same skin tone, one again, seems like an oversight. There’s clear sincerity in the overall set design of the film and it’s one of the films strong points. That same depth could have been achieved with the film's characters though. The sets are often practical and the sound design fleshes them out well. Alvarez prioritizes silence, dripping water, breathing, and the natural flexing of spacecrafts, creating a very lived in setting.

Overall, this is a fun and solid sci-fi-horror. The exposition at the beginning of the film is light, as we spend more time seeing the hour by hour experiences of the workers. Rather than start in the midst of a mission or already off world; we’re stable and on land. The film creates claustrophobia and uses effective lighting once the narrative picks up, but audiences should spend more time with the film as they debate the most popular critique: the return of an original character. Though it appears that the family did give permission for inclusion, the use of a deceased actor’s likeness may not have been worth it.

3.5 out of 5