Alien: Romulus – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 59 minutes, Director – Fede Álvarez

Desperate to escape their mining colony for a new planet, a group of young people break into an abandoned space station to steal cryochambers, however find deadly, spreading lifeforms across the ship.

After universe and lore expanding prequels and sequels, some more divisive than those which are almost universally considered poor entries, the Alien franchise takes a turn back towards the basics as horror director Fede Álvarez takes the reins for this latest instalment set between Alien and Aliens. The tone leans more towards the former as a group of young members of a mining colony break into a space station in the hope of getting cryochambers which will help them survive the journey to a better planet where there’s actually daylight. However, as the title and franchise might imply, the abandoned station may not be home to the former crew but is housing deadly xenomorphs and facehuggers; multiplying and spreading across the ship as the run-time goes on.

It takes some time for the alien action to properly kick in as we’re introduced to Cailee Spaeny’s Rain – who the film avoids pitching as the ‘new Ripley’, allowing for her performance to come through more – and her synthetic human, although viewed by her as a brother, Andy (David Jonsson). Her time on the mining colony is extended in the opening scenes, however she takes the risky offer from some old friends of helping to escape instead of spending another 12 years trapped. Once everything is finally in place and we’re on the ship – with a chip from a broken android causing Andy to update and become a much more formal, analytical and skilled figure – things can finally get going.

It’s apparent fairly quickly just who’s going to get picked off, and indeed a couple of the small group are disposed of not long after the introduction of the first facehuggers. A herd of them breaking out of a room and pouring into a corridor, racing towards the protagonists, is a highlight of the film that really makes the most of the crawling movements of the creatures before they launch straight towards a likely victim. When dealing with the physical there are some good moments within Romulus to get across brief creeps.

As for the more prolonged horror as the remaining crew try to survive with a damaged ship hurtling towards a planets rings, and therefore destruction, the scares aren’t quite as present. The overall feeling is that of one of the many Alien knock-off films that we’ve seen plenty of in the four-and-a-half decades since the original horror classic. This isn’t to say that Romulus looks and feels cheap, there have been plenty of likable Alien-light films over the years, and this feeling in the veins of something like 2017’s Life.

Romulus certainly features some good ideas to add to the mix throughout, a sequence involving zero gravity is particularly enjoyable, especially when worked into a climactic set of events. A set of events which feel as if they should be nearing the closing stages, but instead the proceedings are extended with an almost new strand that has much more time spent on it than the build-up would suggest is going to be the case. The events which almost feel like the bulk of the third act feel overlong and enter ridiculous territory. The extent of the stretch – both in terms of run-time and narrative – comes from almost nowhere after the more focused, and albeit familiar-leaning, events beforehand.

Perhaps the case is one idea too many, as those which are introduced throughout and worked into the fight for survival nature of the narrative when unfolding on the space station makes for a likable, if not always scary, set of events. There’s nothing wrong with leaning more into familiar territory within the Alien franchise, especially with the general response to the directions taken since Aliens. However, occasionally things feel more like a film inspired by the franchise rather than an actual entry into it, especially with how long it takes to actually see a xenomorph or facehugger. Things may occasionally feel somewhat slow as they get from one set-piece to another, but there’s a good deal to like about the overall course and template of Alien: Romulus.

Leaning into the original leanings of the franchise, Alien: Romulus may occasionally feel like a film inspired by the series, but there’s enough likable and creepy moments to see it through and make for an effective sci-fi escape horror with some solid lead performances.