The thought of Alien Romulus being directed by Fede Álvarez has been rather dread inducing. Not because Álvarez is incapable of creating a visually stunning and action packed re-imagining of a sacred work, because surely he can. The dread comes from the fact that in the process, he has a tendency to strip that sacred work down to its bare essence in order to create a simple minded popcorn cruncher. Sadly, he meets expectations once again.
Where to Watch Alien Romulus
Alien Romulus – The Good
Visually Stunning
Moviegoers can always depend on Álvarez for his stunning visuals. The man’s ability create fantastic imagery on the screen is incredible. From the raining blood in Evil Dead (2013) to the sunflower fields of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), Álvarez has an eye for the spectacular. Alien: Romulus is no exception. Cinematographer Galo Olivares does a tremendous translating that vision to screen. In doing so, Olivares revives the look and feel of previous Alien installments while still providing a unique visual flair.
Olivares uses a combination of anamorphic and aspherical lenses to constrain the field of view and create a sense of dread and claustrophobia. This works perfectly on sets designed to emphasize tight quarters. The characters are like rats running around a hamster hotel from a xenomorphic hell. As a final nod to the set design, the design of the Corbelan and Renaissance evoke major nostalgia for the design sensibilities of Nostromo and Sulaco.
Special Effects
The special effects are brilliant. It’s increasingly becoming more difficult to discern CGI from practical effects, but it is clear that there are some really good practical effects happening in Alien Romulus. Most of the up-close work is done using practical effects, saving the CGI for the larger scale demands.
There are some truly icky moments to behold. The facehuggers proboscis is now about 3 feet long, and watching it slowly be pulled from someones throat will make anyone squirm in the aisles. The full on assault of 100 facehuggers equally make the skin crawl. Fans of the franchise will not be disappointed by this installment of the chestburster scene.
Most importantly, they really get the xenomorphs right by bringing back smooth skull characteristics from H.R. Giger’s original. The film adds a very interesting detail that might be missed by some. A shot of a dead xenomorph reveals that there is a human-like skull under the translucent dome of the alien. This is a callback to the late 70’s Alien toy from Kenner. I am not sure if Giger intended this design element, but it sure is a cool reference.
The special effects reach their pinnacle with a seriously unsettling final monster that brings the uncanny valley of near-humanity in close proximity with that of the bio-mechanical xenomorph form. I’m not sure that more can be said without spoiling the fun.
Film and Plot Mechanics
Another thing that Fede Álvarez really gets right is feeling of isolation felt on the Renaissance. This all plays perfectly into the survival horror aspect that really underpins every Alien film. It’s punctuated with some really explosive action scenes and massive special effects while the protagonists race against the clock as the spacestation careens into the rings of planet LV-410.
Some of the more cerebral elements that make this film work include the story arc of Andy (David Jonsson), the resident synthetic that accompanies the main character, Rain (Cailee Spaeny). It was very interesting to see his evolution as he is unexpectedly upgraded. The writer’s decision to incorporate compound Z01, “Prometheus Fire”, from Ridley Scott’s prequels is solid. Had these prequel films been retconned it would have been a vertiable tragedy.
Alien Romulus – The Bad
Once Again Fede’s Characters
For the most part, the characters are cardboard cutouts from central casting. This theme repeats throughout the works of Fede Álvarez and writer Rodo Sayagues and this is the most disposable cast since Alien Resurrection. It’s honestly inexcusable when one considers that the history, the legacy, the monster design, the lore have all been provided on a silver platter. Would it have been that difficult to write decent characters with complex backstories and interesting motivations?
They all just provide warm, wet incubators for aliens.
Not All of the Plot Mechanics are Good
The underlying plot that drives the entire story amounts to little more than a set of generic mechanics to once again put humans in contact with aliens. A small band of wage slaves for the Weyland-Yutani corp want to escape LV-401 in favor of a planet named Ygava. To get to Ygava, the team will need cryopods to make the 9 year journey. What luck! There are some spare pods on a derelict spacestation called Renaissance in low orbit. Gotta get there fast because it going to crash into the planets rings in 36 hours.
It sounds lazy, because it is lazy.
The big problem with this narrative is that it recreates the Alien universe in a form that never existed before. This film sits somewhere in the timeline between Alien (1979) and the Aliens (1986). Sure, Weyland-Yutani is a diabolical corporation, but the terraformers in Aliens did not seem to be living in a wage slave dystopia, they were career driven employees.
Also, this plot throws the Aliens plot out of balance because Alien Romulus suggests that Weyland-Yutani was already in possession of the xenomorphs and there would be no reason to send people to the derelict ship on LV-426. In an interesting aside, Ellen Ripley and Jonesy are taking a nap throughout the events of Alien Romulus.
Xenomorph Technicals
While the special effects for the final monster are very good and the monster’s design is extremely unsettling, the whole plot point of this monster is more lazy writing. The fact that Álvarez and Savagues bring forward the story of “Promethus Fire” is great, but it becomes a crutch to create any type of monster that a director could want.
In their defense, the circumstances that created this monster are quit unique compared to those in the past, and while this plot point feels really opportunistic, it is one of the few thought provoking plot points.
Finally, the film introduces new xenomorph lifecycle elements that are not especially profound and completely unnecessary. There really no reason that xenomorphs should need to gestate in a cocoon.
Alien Romulus – The Ugly
Another Alien Resurrection
In the history of unforced errors, it’s simply inexplicable why Álvarez would add a synthetic in the form of Ian Holm.
Those that were around in the 70’s will remember Ian Holm as the renegade synthetic that goes bonkers trying to deliver the xenomorph to the company. It was an utterly fantastic role that is permanently burnt into the collective consciousness of Alien franchise fans.
So let it be that and move on.
This film needed an R&D synthetic, but literally ANY actor could have fit the bill. The precedent has already been sent that there are multiple morphologies for synthetics. At least 5 actors have played the role thus far. Instead, they chose to create a lifecast / CGI amalgamation that would be incredible if not extremely misguided. To his credit, Álvarez did work with Holm’s family to get permission, so the paperwork is in order but that doesn’t make it a good idea.
In the end, this amounts to the ultimate display of fan service in a film that is over-reliant on fan service to be great.
Conclusion
Alien Romulus is once again a pop-corn munching action thriller that brings lots of familiar pieces to bear. It’s a fun flick that revisits old ground. The film performs admirably, yet, it’s mostly forgettable. Furthermore, it brings nothing new to the franchise of substance. This film has far more in common with the Alien vs. Predator franchise than it does with the core canon and fans of the canon should demand more.
2 Responses
No, sorry. The cinematography was fine at best. Nothing above the minimum expected for a big budget movie. The camera is just pointed at stuff, perspective is obvious and just frames character’s heads when talking during dialogue sequences, no actual artistic vision made it past the set design. It’s shot like a soap opera. To compare it to the original which used so many clever compositions and transitional movements/focus pulls, it doesn’t even come close to being noteworthy. It’s mostly tight shots with offer no sense of orientation or natural continuity; which I don’t think pulls off a claustrophobic feeling well, it’s just confusing. The original made you feel like you were really in the ship, Romulus just feels like you’re being force fed a story through the lens. Like every average 16 y/o that picks up a DSLR, the image quality is great, and the subject might be impressive in its own right, but that doesn’t make it good photography.
Yeah.. we saw the “Easter egg”, it being shoved in our face for almost 30 seconds straight somewhere it makes less than no sense being. As you say, way too much fan service and not enough subtlety.
The moment Rain looks at Andy and verbalized “Andy……………… are you there?”, really?… She needed to say that out loud..? It’s painful to watch because it’s so unnatural. We couldn’t fill in the gaps ourselves by her expression alone? In all honesty, we maybe didn’t even need to see her face to feel that. Just the stand out example of many awful dialogue decisions.
I actually think the Z-01 serum and the human-xenomorph hybrid were a fun, if not interesting development in the story as the creature relates to Weyland and the sensibilities of their directives. But it took over an hour to even discover the serum and literally only TEN MINUTES of the mutant hybrid from birth to ejection into outer space, almost play for play rehashing the final scenes of the original.
I really think the story could stand on its own, the premise had potential to feel very personal and genuine (much like BR: 2049), challenging what humanity is in a potential future; but the dialogue and cinematics feel forced and dull, and philosophical or moral motivations fell off a cliff beyond Rain being denied leave. Nice to see physical SFX and CGI is great. They had an opportunity to lean into the pacing and directing aesthetics of the early movies, it would have stood out from much of today’s rushed and overly sensational natured movies. But the choppy, back and forward cuts throughout, and the bland compositional decision making fell wildly short of the mark for me.
Thanks for the robust comments. I love to see this type of stuff. I am still a bit more bullish on the cinematography than you, but your points are well taken. I think that overall, we agree on where this film lands on the quality spectrum, if not for different reasons.