Alien: Romulus Review — Jumpy AF
You probably don’t need any popcorn
(Note — this was originally posted on my own review site https://noadshere.com/movies/alien-romulus-review-jumpy-as-f)
We’ve been going to the cinema to see Alien movies for years — from Alien Resurrection with Sigourney Weaver & Winona Ryder, to Alien VS Predator (a bit silly but actually loads of fun), Prometheus (great), Alien Covenant (so-so) and now Alien: Romulus. These movies are better in a dark cinema, where everyone else knows what they’re in for — a couple of hours of folks being stalked and killed by some pretty cool aliens. Some mild SPOILERS follow so head back to the colony now if you want to … before it’s too late!
Director: Fede Álvarez
Main cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Johnson, Isabela Merced, Archie Renaux
All Alien movies end up the same way — a group of people being killed one by one on some spaceship by the classic Alien alien, and maybe also some of those bloodcurdlingly scary face hugger things. This movie doesn’t break from the formula, but it is still a great movie. We know what we’re going to get — a strong heroine who’ll hopefully win by the end, and in between we’ll be treated to all sorts of mayhem and tension. And boy, is there tension in this movie. I lost count of the number of times I was looking through my hands, dreading what was about to happen. One scene has those aforementioned face huggers swimming through a flooded room around the feet of folks trapped there, and the characters’ terror is matched by our terror watching it. “Get out of there!” we silently scream from the dark cinema!
Although this movie isn’t all that original (apart from MILD SPOILER some frankly crazy stuff towards the end of the movie) this is an enjoyable movie and kept us on edge right the way through. Cailee Spaeny is great as our heroine — a movie like needs someone interesting in the main role and she fits the bill perfectly. Her character isn’t a hard-boiled asskicker, her motivations are trying to get her and her android brother Andy (played by David Johnson) off their miserable corporation-run planet, and she’s a sympathetic figure for folks to root for. David Johnson is simply fantastic as the simplistic android and (we’re being careful not to give too much away), his journey through the movie provides some of the best moments. The Alien movies’ androids are always that little bit off-kilter, and a lovely counterpoint to Star Wars or Star Trek robots, just as the Alien aesthetic of the future — more dystopian and industrial than utopian feels just more realistic.
One thing we’ve reflected on after watching the movie is that the actual alien itself- the xenomorph jet black nightmare with another small head inside its mouth just for extra scary points — isn’t in the movie that much. Not from a ‘let’s show the monster less’ approach, but more I think as the director realised that the face-huggers, and the fear of being implanted by them with a mini-xenomorph that’ll jump out of your chests is actually much more frightening. It’s the terror of being taken over and killed from the inside as oppose to the massive scary thing with acid for blood. Hence our review title — this movie is jumpy AF.
One final note — I used to work in a cinema and noticed that when folks watched a really good scary movies, a lot of people didn’t eat their popcorn. Whether it was because of the tension, or they lost their appetite watching gruesome things on the screen, after movies like the Sixth Sense, we’d be picking up full tubs of popcorn or nachos in the aisles. Likewise with Alien Romulus — I bought a large popcorn, but didn’t put a serious dent in it at all!
Summary: Great horror and definitely worth a watch on a big screen in a dark cinema.
Rating: 5 stars
All images courtesy of: https://press.disney.co.uk/press-kit/alien:-romulus
