It was fair to say that perhaps I bigged up the latest entry into the Alien franchise a little bit too much, but on the other hand no more than what I do with most new entries in franchises I love. For instance I did rewatch every prior Alien film and naturally found the same pattern of like and dislike and indifference that I’ve felt along the franchise for many years. These rewatches did not drastically change much of anything, for me this is still a franchise of two masterpieces and a series of films that range from the solid to the bizarre. So the alleged stripped back nature of Romulus in the hands of Fede Alvarez and his writing partner Rodo Sayagues did for the most part tempt me to go into this one with a little higher expectations than normal. It seemed right about until the 40 minute mark I was a happy bunny, but then a certain occurrence occurs and I unfortunately once again was snowballed into the never-ending conversations that surround and envelop the plaguing issues of the soft reboot or the lega-sequel.

Credit

For the most part to be honest Romulus does a pretty solid job of delivering an effective return to the blue collar horror of the original and most successful entries into the Alien series, whilst somehow managing with effect to also imbue the elements of the Prometheus and Covenant mythology that can be so polarizing for many audience members. However the film does for the most part also not offer much other than familiarity, homage and in its two biggest offences indeed bringing back a previous character through the use of garish CGI and the re-utterance of one shameful out of place line of dialogue. It’s the rest of the film however being up to a pretty high standard of tension, scares and thrills that leads these two glaring moments to just be all the more glaring. There is also the matter that the ‘moment’ of this characters reintroduction is actually far more than one could even imagine, stretching a cameo into arguably the films chief villain beyond the aliens themselves. But the aliens themselves are all looking better here than they have in some time and Alvarez’s effective handle on blending practical work and computer imagery does indeed make for a tangible sense amongst the occasion. But once again this tangibility is blasted from the airlock anytime like a jump scare this CGI resurrection of the deceased reappears. Where Alvarez succeeds best is in the early moments of establishing our characters, which as brought to the screen by a very capable group of younger actors brings us back somewhat to the stylings of the blue collar sensibilities of older Alien entries – with still the general sense of cleanliness about the dirt that comes with all current studio fare. Caillee Spaeny is once again her typical brilliant self, heading off a trilogy of major new releases that show her varied depths as a performer with this and Priscilla and Civil War. Now overall I wouldn’t say her or the film itself is on the level of either Garland or Coppola’s films, but it is a further exemplification of her talents as an actress. David Jonsson has been the standout for many from this film however and its clear to see why, given a treat of a role with a multi-dimensional android character who ranges across a plethora of emotions and directives. Jonsson does great work with all of these in fact and paired with Spaeny leads us down a thrilling series of events. A mostly enjoyable series of events, if not a derivative and at times infuriatingly addicted to homage tale that has a lot more not going for it, than not.

 -

There are many things to like about the 6/10 Alien: Romulus, but overall there were just too many things that for me tilted the scales. One atrocious regurgitation of a line and one return of a character plague this whole affair with a needless quality roof far lower than the rest of the film deserves. There is somewhere in here the stripped back simple horror that this film was marketed as, but one realises rather quickly that what begins as a simple nod, swiftly snowballs into a major character and we are left stranded between the pits of the soft reboot quarry and the highs of a skilled horror filmmaker working in a sandbox he clearly adores – perhaps adores too much.

SPOILER P.S. The matter of Ian Holm himself being since passed adds a timbre to my dislike of the decision to bring back the character more so than not one feels, not that I particularly enjoy anytime they do this sort of thing. However, as the series has shown successfully many times before and as this very film showed for about five minutes, there is a way to do a return of this robot figure with effective makeup and subtle lighting. The lengths this film goes to make its already morally questionable decision just look like absolute crap regardless of how you feel on the matter at hand is a choice I fail to understand.

-        Thomas Carruthers