Now streaming–Alien: Romulus, the best movie in the franchise in 40 years

Review by C.J. Bunce

The various movie trailers did not do this movie justice. Celebrating 45 years of the franchise, Alien: Romulus is now streaming on Hulu, and if you thought this would be just another yawner in the long run of Alien movies, get ready for a surprise. Its slowly building story and unique approach delivers the best entry since Aliens, but at times it competes successfully against both Ridley Scott’s Alien from 1979 and James Cameron’s 1986 follow-up. Set between those movies, it features a young crew of characters and deeper insight into that vile intergalactic corporation Weyland-Yutani and its impact on humans. It’s so well done it could set off a new branch of films. For fans of the novels (and I’ve read them all–see my reviews at borg below), it also delivers better storytelling, more fun, and what you may agree is the scariest entry in the sci-fi/horror franchise so far.

Nearly every expected Alien movie box is ticked, but where you’d think the movie would be repetitive, it’s not. It’s not just another movie full of Xenomorph battles. Writer-director Fede Alvarez pulls back on the monster attacks, not exactly like Steven Spielberg did in Jaws, but with a rewarding effect. He saves the big horror for an eerie end, a throwback to Dr. Weyland’s research from earlier films in the form of an all-new creation, one like what we’ve read about in the tie-in novels. It may also come full circle with Ridley Scott’s idea of explaining the creation of mankind tied to the aliens in his universe. Birth, rebirth, where did we come from?–These are all features of the franchise viewers will be familiar with. Alvarez finds a way to work it all in.

We again have a determined and engaging woman driving the action (a la Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley), but she and the entire cast are younger, at times giving the audience the feel of a Young Adult novel adaptation, but never flinching at what Alien movies do best–mix science fiction with space horrors. The lead is Cailee Spaeny (Pacific Rim: Uprising) as Rain Carradine, a young woman reeled into participating in the theft of a floating old spaceship, soon to careen with the rings on the planet where she and her friends are stuck in a cross between indentured servants and outright slaves. As in Catch 22, just as she’s earned the right for a ticket off-planet, the rules change and she’s captive for several more years. Her goal is to live in a system where residents can actually see the sun, and one nine light years away fits the bill. Her friends are fed up and ready to go even at risk to their lives. They believe the abandoned ship orbiting above should have enough cryo-pods to get them to their destination safely.

They don’t hold back on why they want her help–it’s her brother Andy (Murder is Easy’s David Jonsson), who is really a Synthetic, the franchise’s bio-mechanical androids (we call them borgs or cyborgs)–another box ticked. Rain’s father raised her with Andy as a brother, and his primary directive is to protect her. He isn’t as sharp as a new unit, and other than protecting Rain he is slow in other ways and speaks frequently in “dad jokes” to ease the tension in the humans around him (which rarely succeeds). Rain’s friends believe Andy has the necessary functionality to help them with their spaceship heist.

These “friends” all evoke the British kids in Attack the Block or the young adults of Supacell–both in dialect and attitude. As mine workers they displace the usually important other required feature of a great Alien movie: the Colonial Marines. It may sound crazy but this movie does just fine without them. The small cast includes Tyler, Rain’s former boyfriend (played by Archie Renaux), Bjorn (Spike Feam), pilot Navarro (Aileen Wu), and more importantly Isabela Merced (Transformers: The Last Knight) as Kay, sister of Tyler, who shares with Rain that she is pregnant after they make their way to the ship.

For fans of incredible sci-fi soundtracks, you have a new album in your future (it’s available here). Composer Benjamin Wallfisch joins Bernard Hermann, Jerry Goldsmith, and John Williams in bringing a noteworthy, riveting sci-fi score, with nods to John Barry’s themes in The Black Hole. It is Oscar-worthy, possibly the best musical score for a film this year.

Is the movie perfect? No, but neither was Alien or Aliens. Its introduction of a character from the franchise’s past isn’t handled as well as it could have been (it has the disturbing “uncanny valley” effect that happens when the technology isn’t quite ready for release, like the recent Star Trek fan film that digitized William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy into a post-death sequence). We’ve discussed this technology for years at borg, and it only works well when it’s used to a minimum. It’s overused here, and its best use is when the surprise character appears only on a fizzled screen monitor toward the end. The climax also struggles to find the right balance between an homage to H.R. Giger’s creepy biological horror and an all-out gross-out horror fest. But just as Giger’s most creepy visions made viewers uncomfortable in the 1979 movie, viewers will feel the same here, so maybe they got it right. In keeping the film well-edited, it also leaves out any of your typical heist-related tropes as the crew embark to take the spaceship. They simply take it, with not even a question by the planet’s security forces (like we saw in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). It’s a lost opportunity that would be fun to find in a director’s cut.

So it’s not about the heist, but like all Alien stories who, if anyone, makes it to the end of the movie alive. The pacing and suspense in the second half of the movie, which has a ticking clock–in the form of a countdown to crashing into the planet’s rings–is where you’ll find the scary bits you may agree are on par with the first two films. A scene where the acid of dead aliens is floating in a zero-G scenario that Rain and Andy must “fly” through without getting touched by the acid is something you’ve never seen before, and it’s brilliant.

Where does it fall with other science fiction movies? For starters it’s more exciting and better sci-fi than Blade Runner 2049 and all the Predator movies except the original Predator. And it’s better than all the Alien sequels since Aliens. It also has the fun factor that Aliens had, and Alien didn’t. Alien: Romulus is a rollercoaster, a thrill ride. Its nods to the other films are obvious and fun. The cinematography (Gaio Olivares), the sets (Naaman Marshall), the lived-in feel of the abandoned ship, the props, and visual effects all are worthy of the originals, and they also are different so as not to feel like mere copies. The outer space scenes and the use of sound are as good as you’d see in any sci-fi classic.

Fans of the franchise will love it. It’s top science fiction in a year with very little great science fiction in the theaters. Don’t miss Alien: Romulus, now streaming on Hulu.

borg is your best source for Alien franchise news. Check out my reviews of previous books and tie-ins in the franchise:

Alien: The Roleplaying Game

Alien and Predator comics

Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon

Alien: Sea of Sorrows by James A. Moore

Alien: River of Pain by Christopher Golden

Alien: The Cold Forge by Alex White

Alien: Colony War by David Barnett

Alien: Inferno’s Fall by Philippa Ballantine

Alien: Prototype by Tim Waggoner

Alien: Into Charybdis by Alex White

Alien: Enemy of My Enemy by Mary Sangiovanni