The Alien franchise has become quite a cult series. After the original from 1979 (Alien) was a great success, three more films were released, with the fourth coming out in 1997 (Alien: Resurrection). This was followed by a number of clashes with Predator, which were released in 2004 and 2007, after which it was quiet around the franchise for a few years. Promotheus (2012) and Alien Covenant (2017) were supposed to breathe new life into the franchise, but the absence of the Xenomorphs disappointed some fans.
Given the low box office performance of Alien Covenant, we never saw a third installment in Ridley Scott’s prequel series. There was also still a big gap between the discovery of the Engineers and their Xenomorphs showing up in Alien (1979). The franchise’s timeline is unfortunately not entirely clear due to the time jumps, but for Alien Romulus it thankfully is.
Alien Romulus feels very familiar to long-time fans
Alien Romulus takes place between the first and second parts, 20 years after we saw Ripley survive against the murderous creatures. We follow a group of young colonists who are looking for freedom and for that they need cryopods to go to a distant planet. They think they are lucky when a ship floats without a crew above their planet, but unfortunately they soon get acquainted with the wiles of megacorporation Weyland-Yutani.
The atmosphere of the original
Director and writer Fede Alvarez’s choice to return to a familiar zeitgeist for fans of the first hour works out very well. After having made excursions to various prequels, it is wonderful to see an Alien story from the previous century again, but in a modern guise.
The film feels very familiar because of this choice. If you have seen the original trilogy, you will see many points of recognition in this Alien story. It mainly takes place on a ship, where a young group of adventurers suddenly encounter an alien life form and they have to survive. With this I simplify the story enormously, but I certainly do not want to do it an injustice. Alien Romulus has a compelling story, but is a bit safe. It does not really surprise, although you could also choose to call the story recognizable.
Beautiful cinematography, lighting and sound
Where Alvarez chooses recognizability with his story, he does this also in the images, the technology from the time and the way of building up tension, but then in a contemporary guise. I think he could not have made a better choice here. The images of space are breathtakingly beautiful and the way he plays with sound is simply brilliant. The film already opens with deathly silence, something that immediately makes clear how terrifying the large empty space is in itself. He uses this deathly silence several times in the film, in which he also quickly switches between perspectives to build up even more tension.
He uses light in a great way. The film has many dark tones, because of the metals of the spaceship and the electricity that often fails, but he manages to solve this by using a lot of orange lights and sometimes indicating details with blue readers and red torches. The way the lights provide an extra layer of tension and the actors are illuminated, is phenomenal.
Artificial Humanity has never been better
The biggest feather in the cap for the acting, in my opinion, goes to David Jonsson who plays Andy, the artificial human. He knows how to make it clear in a beautiful way that he is not a real human, but still has some emotion. He grew up with Rain (Cailee Spaeny), which gives them a special bond. He constantly manages to maintain his robot-like appearance, while at crucial moments he also manages to touch a sensitive chord. It is particularly clever how he balances between human and machine, and is therefore really the star of the show.
Cailee Spaeny is the new Sigourney Weaver of the story and certainly deserves a big round of applause for her role. These two characters managed to evoke the most emotional moments, while the other crew did not really touch me. The opening of the film, which has a bit of world building, was very interesting, but quite short, so we do not immediately realize how close the group is with each other. When crew members are captured by the Xenomorphs, I did not always feel the impact of this. Of course it was a shame when a crew member was captured, but unfortunately the emotional impact of this was not always felt.
A spectacular ending
Alvarez has certainly not forgotten that a good Alien film is only finished when it is finished. The film still manages to surprise at the end with one of the most exciting parts that the franchise loves. He dares to introduce a number of special new things at the end, which feels like the icing on the cake. I hope he gets the chance to make a sequel, because I am still far too curious about the future of this story.
Alien Romulus is a very worthy part of the Alien Franchise, which will undoubtedly create a new fan base for this special series. Fede Alvarez makes the very nice choice to capture the atmosphere of the original films and put them in a modern jacket, which makes it feel familiar, but still manages to impress thanks to modern techniques. This makes the film not very surprising, but still one that you have to have seen in the cinema because of the beautiful shots, the light and sound and a very strong David Jonsson and Cailee Spaeny.
