Alien: Romulus Review | Is It Just More of the Same?
by Garry Murdock
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The year is 2142 and Rain (Cailee Spaeny) has found herself in quite a serious predicament. She’s been working at Jackson’s Star, a mining colony 65 light years from Earth. She’s lived there all her life, eventually becoming old enough to work in the farming division. Now, her work contract is up. She’s looking forward to getting her travel papers and getting out of there. Her destination: a planet called Yvaga—a fully terraformed planet that she has never been to but hears is a paradise.
But then she’s told the bad news: the mine’s owner, The Weyland-Yutani Corporation (the same nefarious company that owned the spaceship Nostromo in Alien and the Sulaco in Aliens—between which events this movie takes place) have extended her contract. What’s worse, instead of continuing her previous assignment, she will now be working in the mines. Apparently, Weyland-Yutani can do all that, without her consent, and the extension is for years.
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Her friends are just as angry as her, as they too are stuck on this barren piece of rock. Jackson’s Star is a dangerous place. It’s not just the crime (which there’s plenty of), there’s the fact that just working in the mines is hazardous to your health. Both of Rain’s parents died from lung disease working down there. Rain is afraid she’ll never leave, that they will extend her contract again and again and she will end up like her parents. Rain is told by a bureaucrat running Weyland-Yutani’s Office of Colony Affairs: “Thank you, and remember the company is really grateful for your ongoing service.”
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Maybe, just maybe, not all is lost. Rain’s friends have an ambitious plan, more ambitious than they could possibly know. They have discovered that orbiting above them is an abandoned Weyland-Yutani research station called the Renaissance. Their plan is to take a small vessel up to the station and steal the cryosleep pods they will need for the long (nine years) voyage to Yvaga. Simple, right?
At no time does anyone in the group ask the obvious questions: What happened to the Renaissance crew? Why would Weyland-Yutani just abandon a station that must be worth a fortune, even if just for its salvageable parts?
They’re about to find out.
Alien: Romulus is the long-awaited continuation of the horror sci-fi movie series that started with Alien in 1979. There hasn’t been an alien movie since 2017’s underperforming Alien: Covenant. Alien: Romulus, however, has received a much better reception, with Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcorn Meter (that’s the audience score) at 85%, with critics not too far behind with a Tomatometer score of 80%.
The movie is directed, co-written and executive produced by Fede Alvarez, who seems to specialize in horror. He wrote Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Don’t Breathe 2. In the film’s Electronic Press Kit (EPK), Alvarez calls it a “total privilege” to be handed the reins to this next installment of the franchise. Ridley Scott, who directed the first Alien and acted as a producer on this one, said of Alvarez: “I thought Alien needed a really fresh view…I knew that he could do that.”
Sure, there are indeed some original ideas here, but I’m hesitant to call the movie a “fresh view”. What we have is a group of people trapped on a ship, being killed off one by one until it’s down to one or two survivors. Sound familiar? It looks and sounds a lot like Alien, Aliens, Alien³…well, probably all of them, in fact (honestly I can’t remember what happened after the third installment but I’m sure there was a lot of running and screaming in confined spaces).
There are a lot of (deliberate) nods to James Cameron’s Aliens, arguably the best of the series. First, time is working against them: it’s only a matter of hours before the Renaissance crashes into the rings of planet LV-410, where the mining colony is located (in Aliens the Colonial Marines had only hours before the whole facility they’re trapped in blows up). There’s even a computer voice politely counting down the hours and minutes until the ship will inevitably be destroyed (same with Aliens). Tyler (Archie Renaux) shows Rain how to use a pulse rifle, as Hicks did with Ripley in Aliens. And we get to hear the infamous Sigourney Weaver line “Get away from her, you bitch!” one more time. There’s a lot more similarities and even the ending confrontation between Rain and an alien is very, very reminiscent of the ending of…you guessed it: Aliens.
There are, fortunately, some interesting characters here in addition to some new developments, which may speak to the film’s success. David Jonnson plays Andy, a Weyland-Yutani synthetic (that’s an artificial life form who looks and acts human) who is best friends with Rain. In fact they’re so close she refers to him as her “brother.” Andy is an out-of-date model, deserted by the company and scared of his own shadow. However, once they are on board the Renaissance Andy is reprogrammed with some significant upgrades, and his personality and abilities start to change. His loyalties becomes questioned and suddenly you don’t know whose side he’s on.
Jonnson’s performance as Andy is quite simply terrific.
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But Andy is not the only synthetic in the movie. A badly damaged model is found on the station and is reactivated. His name is Rook and he is identical to the artificial life form (that would be Ash) from the first Alien movie. That’s because he’s the exact same model–a Hypderdyne Systems 120-A/2. Ash was played by Ian Holm in the original Alien and you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s playing Rook here. That’s because Holm died in 2020.
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Thanks to technical advances in filmmaking, including the use of AI tools, Rook has a number of scenes in the movie, and Holm gets an acting credit in the film’s closing credits that reads as follows: “Facial and Vocal Reference by Ian Holm.” Another actor, Daniel Betts, gets credit for “Facial and Vocal Performance”.
Rook’s similarities to Ash are both amazing and well, creepy too. This is partly because we know from the original film that Rook’s only interests are that of Weyland-Yutani (even if the directives he receives puts the crew in danger), and partly because the filmmakers have made him look so real that the ramifications (in real life) are terrifying. But we won’t have that discussion about Deepfake Technology here. Suffice to say the voice and mannerisms of Rook all seem authentic, and if you went into the theatre not familiar with Alien or not knowing Rook was not played by a real actor, you probably wouldn’t notice anything. The recreation of Holm’s likeness and voice is so well done that no doubt within ten years Humphrey Bogart will be back on the big screen, looking suave in a three-piece grey suit and fedora and headlining a sequel to The Maltese Falcon.
To the director’s credit, there are some differences from the other Alien movies here. It’s discovered that the aliens track humans by sensing body heat, meaning one can make themselves invisible to the aliens if they jack up the room temperature to the same as their body’s. But, of course, as one expendable member of the team states: “stress, fear, (and) panic will spike your temperature and you’ll be exposed.” This new bit of cloaking information I suppose is compatible with the other Alien movies, and it makes for one very tense scene here. In addition, there’s a hint of where the tall, very pale skinned aliens come from that were introduced to us in Prometheus.
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Did I like Alien: Romulus? Let me put it this way: I did not not like it. I would, however, have liked to have seen some more originality. And, in all honesty, I’d rather have seen Ridley Scott back at the helm. He is, after all, the guy who directed the original Alien, Bladerunner (which still holds up today), All the Money in the World, The Martian, American Gangster, the upcoming Gladiator II and so much more. m
In any event, the movie has been a massive success. It grossed over $105 million in Canada and the U.S., and China alone brought in another $110 million. Today, the global tally is over $350 million. It’s the highest grossing horror film in the history of IMAX, which contributed $40 million to that total. When you consider the movie cost only $80 million to make, and that it had no real star power, and it made over four times its budget back (twice is considered successful), then 20th Century Studios can breathe a sight of relief that making another alien film was the right call.
What does this mean? Can we count on another Alien film? You can bet on that, considering that Alien: Romulus is the second highest grossing of all seven Alien films (the first is Prometheus, a prequel which raked in over $400 million).
I would hope that any future film will take the series in a whole new direction and not focus on the continuing adventures of Rain. A decade ago, director Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium, Chappie) came up with the idea for a direct (alternate) sequel to Aliens. This movie would have seen the characters of Hicks and Newt live this time (instead of being killed so mercilessly in the first minute of Alien³) and have a new adventure with everyone’s favourite alien-killing heroine Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). But the concept was scrapped and Ridley Scott did the alien prequels instead (that would be Prometheus and Alien: Covenant). You can see some of the concept art Bomkamp had done up here. Now Blomkamp’s movie is one I would have liked to have seen made. And still do.
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For die-hard alien fans, a TV series has been in the works for quite some time. The working title is Alien Earth and it will star Timothy Olyphant (Justified) and Sydney Chandler (Don’t Worry Darling). From the title it sounds like the aliens finally make it to Earth. Look for the series to debut next summer.
As for Alien: Romulus, it is getting its Blu-ray and Blu-ray 4K release on December 3rd. Strangely, it’s also getting a release on VHS too, even stranger is that the movie will be in the 4 by 3 aspect ratio (so, not letterboxed). As a buyer, you can expect a real vintage viewing experience. Assuming that is, you still have a VCR…
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