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“Alien: Romulus” Spoiler-Free Review

Tanner RushAugust 19, 2024

0 457 3 minutes read

Alien: Romulus

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

alien romulus

I’ve managed to see every Alien and Alien-adjacent movie since Aliens first premiered in 1986, and it is safe to say I’ve been a lifelong fan. Some were excellent, a few were great, a couple more were good and two are stinkers, but in the end I’ve found enjoyment even in the bad ones.

The lore draws me in, and whenever there’s a new Alien film hitting the big screen, I find myself doing a deep dive into the mythos via YouTube videos and comic books. What started with Ridley Scott’s amazing Alien in 1979 has spawned a whole host of sequels and even a couple prequels (which I hope have their stories finished one day).

As many of you know, Disney now owns the rights to all of 20th Century Fox’s (now called 20th Century Studios) properties like Predator, Terminator, Avatar, Deadpool, X-Men, and of course, Alien. I was skeptical, but found they did a great job producing the 2022 film Predator: Prey, which ended up being the best film of that franchise since the second film (IMO).

So when I heard that the House of Mouse was making an Alien movie, I was excited. I managed to avoid any news about the movie—another local news site spoiled some of it in a headline—but other than that I went in completely fresh. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Alien: Romulus is a throwback to the “haunted house in space” idea of the first movie. It isn’t polished with smooth surfaces like the prequels, but feels like the lived-in world that Ridley Scott first introduced us to all those years ago in the late 1970s.

For some reason, Disney loves to aim their movies at a younger audience, and this film was no different. I did feel at times like I was watching a bunch of teens without much life experience in the haunted house at the Tri-County Fair. It seemed a little unbelievable, but, then again we’re talking about giant space creatures that burst from your chest and bleed acid, so I guess the suspension of disbelief is kind of a necessity here. In space… no one can hear Gen Z scream.

My only other complaint is that some of the CG seemed more like something you’d see on Disney+ or Hulu than on the big screen. I get it, these things are hard to create. It’s not like a Friday the 13th sequel where your budget would probably be 1/10th of the cost. These space epics take a lot of time and planning, and a lot of money to make. The aliens looked AMAZING, and were maybe the best looking Xenomorphs in the history of the franchise (although I still am fairly partial to Cameron’s practical effects in Aliens). That being said, there are parts where the CG was so bad it seemed to take me right out of the movie. Now I’m just an old hulk of coal at the ripe old age of 45. I’m a Gen X-er who didn’t grow up on video games and wasn’t mainlining CGI since the age of six, so maybe for a younger person this wouldn’t be the case. I remember seeing Rogue One with my girlfriend at the time who was seven years younger. After the show, I complained about video game Tarkin and marshmallow face Princess Leia and how the CG took me out of the story, and she turned to me and said “I thought those were real people.”

Back to the movie. What I liked about it is that it seems to be doing some big world building. It felt like parts of the sandbox we haven’t seen before are being explored. And with it knocking Deadpool and Wolverine out of the top slot with a strong opening weekend, I’m sure we’ll be getting some sequels sooner rather than later.

You can also see that a lot of love and care went into this film. The writers and director are surely fans, and that shined through with the finished product. There are callbacks to previous installments which at times felt like fan service, but the overall effort they put into this thing must have been staggering.

And even though I felt the film at times should have been called Alien: Romper Room, the acting performances were actually very well done. Look, I get it, we’ve seen the adults have their turn fighting the chest bursters, queen, dog aliens and hybrids. Maybe it’s time to give the kids a shot. I just get a little annoyed at the patterns Disney has sometimes, okay?

So, to me this thing is pretty close to the top of the heap as far as Alien movies go. I try to think: “What Alien movies would I not mind watching like 20 more times?” Yes, I think about this kind of stuff. And I think it goes something like this, even though I know you didn’t ask for it: