Alien Romulus: Safe, But Satisfying Enough

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

The answer ever since I saw the excellent trailer for Fede Alvarez's Alien standalone spin-off Alien: Romulus has been a consistent and resounding "yes." I was wowed by the visuals in the trailer, and while yeah, there were some things I saw that worried me critically, that's pretty standard for every franchise trailer out there on the internet. However, I don't really love the idea of first impressions having a monopoly over my perception of a given film, especially because first impressions often happen to be woefully incorrect and unfortunately influential over our opinions of a film, so I went into Romulus with some relatively relaxed standards (at least as relaxed as I can be with my critical notebook in hand). I kind of knew I would enjoy this film, and you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. It's good to enjoy a film every so often. However, how does the film hold up from a critical standpoint? Well, Romulus is no masterpiece, but I can certainly say it's far from a bad film. Aesthetically, it's a very pleasing piece, and the story the film tells is undeniably a perfectly serviceable one. On a more basic level, I found myself truly enjoying this film, and that's something that everyone, critic or otherwise, can relate to. But enough meandering from me. Let's get into the fundamentals of the construction of Alien: Romulus.

Alien: Romulus is a 2024 spin-off of Ridley Scott's 1978 horror sci-fi classic. It follows a young woman named Rain Carradine and her synthetic sidekick Andy as they and a group of young scavengers come face-to-face with perhaps the most dangerous organisms in the known universe while picking through a derelict space station.

Alright, so I want to start by talking about this film's fundamentals. The visuals of Romulus are just incredible, and the film truly brings the worlds it is trying to portray to ugly, horrifying, and dangerous yet strangely beautiful and even momentarily ethereal life. The mixture of practical sets and computer-generated imagery is very well done, and some of the labor settlements we see early on in the film really reminded me of the Correllian shipyards we see in Solo: A Star Wars Story in the very best of ways. The beauty that was so prevalent in Scott's latest Alien films is present in this film as well but also grounded in a very mechanical way, so there's not really as much of a disconnect between our world and Rain's world as there was between Earth and, say, Prometheus's LV-223. The sound design is solid throughout, but I observed that the film's high point from a craft perspective was definitely its visuals. As far as the characters of the film go, they're unfortunately not much to write home about - mostly. The relationship between Rain and her loveably wholesome synthetic "brother" Andy is certainly the highlight of the film, and they were the one character dynamic in the film that actually felt like it carried genuine emotional stakes. But as far as the rest of the cast goes, they too often feel like fodder for the insatiable titular aliens.

The plot of the film has me at a bit of an impasse because there are some really unusual aspects to it that I genuinely love. I'll talk about those particular aspects in greater detail later on, but for now, I want to address the fact that the plot of this film has some really big pacing gaps in it. There are moments in the film where everything just stops happening, and this is a shame because the film could have used these moments to elaborate on some parts of the film that unfortunately got left a little underbaked, but instead, it feels like someone is just periodically hitting "pause" on an otherwise pretty solid song every so often, and it's a jarring and annoying tendency of this film. Nowhere is this sense of an underbaked narrative felt more keenly than with the goals of our characters. There are some interesting and personal motivations that get thrown into the film at the beginning, but they unfortunately never get elaborated on, and the film suffers because of it. The second half of the second act of the film is the worst offender in the category of doing nothing, because the first act smartly sets a ticking clock for our characters, and the third act wraps everything up in a competent enough fashion, but the second act just kind of meanders around while not really accomplishing anything of value. However, with all that criticism out of the way, I must say that the film does something unusual that is incredibly satisfying: its sense of setup and payoff is wonderful, and nowhere is this felt more than with the rules of the space station. A lot of promises and threats are made regarding potential risks and opportunities aboard this strange space station, and none of them ever go unaddressed. I really appreciated this aspect of the film, and wish that more stories would commit themselves to the idea of setup and payoff. As for the scares in the film, they're fine. They're not as menacing or as shocking as I've ever seen, but neither are they boring. There were a few moments when I jumped watching this film, and I think that's enough for me. However, one thing that's more important than crafting individual scares is crafting an ominous and immersive atmosphere, and Romulus does this very, very well. A film that feels distanced enough from reality and yet immersive enough to the point where it feels lived in is sitting in a very fortunate plane of existence, and that sense of suspense of disbelief really helps the film move beyond the artificialness and superficiality that defines too many science fiction pieces made today.

All in all, Alien: Romulus is a mixed bag of a film, but satisfying enough. It gives us a committed back-to-the-basics approach in regards to the series as a whole, which is a move that I honestly have mixed feelings about. Yes, the franchise has needed to make a move of this manner for a while, but maybe it didn't need to do it in such a, I don't know, chicken way? The level of fan service in this movie fluctuates anywhere from bearable to a bit forced, and some of the gaps in the film's narrative really rubbed me the wrong way. However, the film is also visually stunning, quite frightening when it wants to be, and best of all, intelligently fleshed out in regards to the rules of its world and how they are applied by the characters that inhabit it. While its flaws prevent Romulus from achieving true greatness, I can definitely say that it's a movie I'm glad I watched, even amidst all the hustle and bustle of school.

And sometimes, being glad you watched something is enough.

Alien: Romulus - 6/10

Ecclesiastes 4:10