August Movie Pick: 'Alien: Romulus'

There is a lot of talk about the director Fede Alvarez, who did a very good job here. I even saw some praises from Ridley Scott, who gave birth to this franchise, and some comments from James Cameron, who evolved the cult movie back in the day.

Spoilers ahead.

Unfortunately, we get rid of the best character first. With the exception of Andy, the new synthetic, who does an incredible job as an android in the second part of the movie, playing the wild card until the end, both Navarro and Bjorn lose their lives, making this teen drama less engaging. The dynamic between the group and those two characters was the main thing that got me through the first twenty minutes of the movie. It starts slow. Alvarez tries to build a world that we never use. The only purpose of following the main character throughout is to establish her motivation, as well as her connections, mostly with her brother Andy, the artificial person, who at the beginning of the movie plays a dumb version of an android with some software problems that are supposed to make us feel sympathetic toward him and to help us understand the connection between him and his sister. For me, I much more enjoyed when he became this emotionless machine that controlled the situation when the movie picked up. Rain is too dramatic for this harsh world; these kids are too CW. The cigarette scene! They seem like they wouldn’t last a day (actually when I think about it, they didn't), and they have a spaceship with such technology but no HD cameras. They are searching for cryo capsules, where a human body can be stored alive, not experiencing time, but they do not have HQ cameras. Androids but blurry cameras. Those little things are a bit annoying, but I get it—the director very much wanted to continue the story after the first film and to place Romulus somewhere there. He cannot present a technology that does not exist in the second film, which creates this weird space where, if he follows the rules of the timeline, he somehow looks ridiculous, and if he doesn’t, he will be crucified for not following the rules and messing up the franchise. Another thing that looks ridiculous at first is the de-aged android Ash, who tried to kill Sigourney back then. There were a few shots before they placed him face up and out of the shadows, where I got who he was immediately. I had some time to think about how they would de-age him, and the first shot when we saw him with his half body and his frontal face appeared looked shockingly fake—Luke and Leia-level fake. But after a few moments, I began to get used to him, and the rendering on his face became better, which even got me impressed. I was also impressed by the new elements that were introduced here. With this marketing campaign, for a second, I thought to myself that I was about to watch some mixed creature that had the body of a human but the head of the alien. This terrified me because I really didn’t feel it, and I didn’t want it. Here, Alvarez creates new mythology, plays with the old one in such a good way that I didn’t cringe from the choices that were being made. The humanoid creature that was the final boss of the movie looked horrifying, just like our creators, the Engineers from 'Prometheus,' but longer. That is another thing that I have to congratulate the director for—I was scared for some parts of the movie, mainly the middle, where I think the movie was in its best shape. When the facehuggers and the alien, who at that point was just one, began to terrorize them. For example, of the new stuff, I never saw the cocoon of the alien before, nor did I know it had one in order to grow. I was okay with not knowing how it happens so quickly, but this method makes sense. The cocoon itself looked like a distorted vagina, and our boy Bjorn putting the stick inside and electrifying it was such a sexual innuendo until the alien started to bleed and the green liquid destroyed my favorite character, the asshole of the movie. The fight between the aliens and the 'Sigourney Weaver wannabe' was very interesting—their movements were smoother and more believable. Although the actress Cailee Spaeny did a good job playing Rain (what a CW name is this?), she was no Ripley; she lacked the roughness of a woman astronaut, of someone who could survive something like that. Many of the catastrophic events of ships hitting other ships, and people just surviving hits like that, were unbelievable. The nods to the other movies are almost nudge nudge, wink wink, but I appreciate them very much as a fan, and overall, the movie was a very fun way to spend time. Some of the dialogue and motivations are meh, but I will watch it again as soon as it comes to Disney Plus.

Should you see it in cinemas? If you are a fan, yes. If you are not, you can wait for a fun night and just stream it down the line. The movie has its problems, but just like with 'Prey,' I feel Disney didn’t disappoint the core audience; rather, they ignited the need for more exploration of those properties.

Iliya Badev