8/18/24 - Alien: Romulus (2024) - 5/10

What started as an effective and affecting small-scale alien thriller with outstanding visual ambience and the right nods to its predecessors devolves into a fan-service bonanza & a franchise easter egg nodding bobble-head. What could have been a very good movie completely lost its way and was subsumed under the weight of its call backs and IP nostalgia. It came adrift in that dark coldness of sequel nether realm; losing its way forward telling its own story to something only interested in pointing backwards.

Our introduction to the movie, full of hopeless sub-blue collar existence ground under the capitalist monolith specter of the whole series while, focuses on the battered & dirty lives these characters are living. It was the perfect amount of relating back to the space truckers existence while telling its own fresh story in the Alien world. The look, with its atmospherically macabre darkly lit ship hallways, its low level under lighting of actors and their tensions, and just a bit of grime/cold/grease/wet/sweat, worked so devilishly well. There is an undeniable ambience that persists throughout the film that hums not only for the film but for the franchise. Pairing that with the “group of kids trying to heist in the dark”, almost as if it is Alvarez’s Don’t Breathe IN SPACE, was working and building intensity.

Unfortunately, by half or maybe 2/3s the way through the runtime, the callbacks become the bone crushing tread of this franchise HK-tank plowing through this film and smashing hope-filled skulls into dust. There are too many to point to but they become incessant. Perhaps the screenwriter and director pairing loved the Alien films they were watching while making this too much. Lines, shots, characters, entire scenes along with the tiny details just derail this endeavor. As a lover of the films it actually became a detriment, seeing so much repeated and recycled, that it simply deflated what was possible for what had been done. Just do your own thing, it would have been so much better.

Yes, the use of a deceased actor with CGI was completely unnecessary and poor. Not only is it gross but it didn’t work, aesthetically or cinematically. And a final semi-callback to possibly the worst film of the franchise in a grotesquely weird and all-together generic horror sameness was the final proverbial kick in the film’s gut. The need to inject these elements stunt the movie and its potential.

It had elements such as the story of the artificial person and their journey, sometimes with the human they have connected with on varying levels, which has become the reliable dramatic lynchpin of these films. It made for an endearing journey. That is the strongest element here, aside from the vibe and tone, but it all adds up to at best half a good film. Does the mood mean enough for you? Perhaps if you aren’t as familiar with all the tiny details and memetic moments of the films it wouldn’t bug or trigger you as much? Who knows, but for me, I didn’t like it as much as I wanted to or think it earned.