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Alien Romulus: the film in the franchise that no-one was asking for, is now on the big screen.
Personally, I would rather have had a sequel to Alien Covenant, since Ridley Scott planned a trilogy prior to 1979’s original Alien, brought us Prometheus, then Alien Covenant – each of these three movies mentioned so far relating to the names of the spaceships on which they’re set – with one more to complete the link, and with Covenant ending on a cliffhanger (which I will reference a bit later, so make sure you’ve seen that… and you have had seven years to watch it!)
However, that sequel underperformed and didn’t make its money back, so Fox canned it. Ridley should’ve ensured the money was there for both sequels, and filmed them back-to-back, but here we are.
Since Alien Romulus is set inbetween Alien and Aliens, spaceships use Alien-style tech, which is a good follow-on, but this does highlight where Prometheus and Covenant fell down, in using much more improved technology, when they were set before the original film.
However, as a brief early scene shows the ship collecting an asteroid, which contains a xenomorph (alien, y’know), all this takes place while we hear some 2001: A Space Odyssey-type choral singing, which felt rather out of place, given that this is from a different franchise.
For want of a plot, Rain (Cailee Spaeny – Civil War, Priscilla) works in security, and has long been looking forward to a holiday – going away with her brother, Andy (David Jonsson – Agatha Christie: Murder Is Easy), but now she’s finally attained the 12,000 hours required, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation has decided that all leave is cancelled for the time being, and so she’ll need to work up to 24,000 hours, instead.
Well, nuts to that, because her parents died in the mines, so she doesn’t fancy doing the same thing, since that’s where she’s now being assigned.
Together with a rag-tag bunch of friends of varying genders, racial origins and hairstyles, they steal an abandoned Weyland-Yutani ship with the intention of getting to Yvaga for their hollybobs, rather than doing any more labour. Well, as long as they don’t get caught, and as long as they get the ship up and running before it crashes into their planet’s rings.
Plus, given how at home in Jackson, there’s zero daylight on their planet, heading above the clouds gives them their first view of the sun in years. However, the ship needs a lot of fixing up, rather like an episode of Homes Under The Hammer.
The first problem is that for the cryogenic pods they need, in order to allow them to doze off for the 9-year journey to Yvaga, they only contain enough fuel to last three years, so the quest is on to find some more energy about the ship in order to refill them.
However, because the corporation never learn, someone had the bright idea of storing xenomorph embryos and growing them on the ship, and as you would’ve seen from the trailer, it won’t take long before things go tits up, and aliens are leaping about and trying to kill everyone. Hence, while I was hoping for an Alien Covenant sequel, I guess this is effectively how the plot would’ve played out.
Plus, a chance encounter among the carnage with a disembodied synthetic may help or hinder their efforts.
Now, one thing about a key cast member, which I’ll hide behind a spoiler header, as I’ve also done the same in the cast list below, so if you don’t want to know this reveal before the film, wait until you’ve seen it first, but I will briefly discuss their character:
And another brief spoiler section about a couple of lines in the film, which also references the character mentioned in the above section:
Oh, and one more spoiler section, which also discusses another character, so avoid this if you don’t want to know anything specific before watching the film:
Of the cast, Isabela Merced (Sicario 2: Soldado) usually puts in a good feisty/no-nonsense type of turn, but here, as crew member Kay, like most of them, she gets little to do but run around screaming and/or crying. Meanwhile, Ms Spaeny is uber-cute, but her slight frame makes her the least likely individual to be found down in the mines, and doesn’t look like she’s done a day’s manual labour in her life.
This reminds me of Terminator Genisys, when they tried to (badly) recreate Terminator 2, replacing Linda Hamilton’s muscly-armed Sarah Connor with Emilia Clarke’s complete lack of any trips to the gym.
I went to see Alien Romulus in IMAX, because the aspect ratio opens up to 1.90:1 throughout (as with the likes of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.3 and Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom), and usually this makes for a better experience, but given how Alien films are usually shot in a 2.39:1 widescreen ratio, Alien Romulus should’ve gone the same way, with Panavision cameras like the original, and just ends up looking like Alien: The TV Movie, especially with given how much of it that it tries to copy, in order to follow on from the original film.
Of course, Aliens was shot in 1.85:1 and that looks fine, and Prometheus was 1.66:1 in 70mm IMAX (and 3D), and I hugely enjoyed that film in that format (which has never been released on home formats, eschewing it for the regular 2.39:1 version), but for Romulus, shooting on digital and having it not really look like it should be a cinema film just doesn’t work for me.
Overall, Alien Romulus is nothing I’d need to see again, except out of curiosity to see how the 2.39:1 print compares to the opened-up IMAX ratio. As I’m on Odeon’s Limitless+, if such a screening does come along that fits in with other films, I might check it out, as it won’t cost me any extra. For anyone wondering about the IMAX uplift, Odeon charges £5 if you’re on Limitless or Limitless+ (the latter giving free uplifts for 3D and Premiere seating), while the Dolby screen is an extra £3.
It also feels like a bit of a con that the studio emblazoned “From the director of Evil Dead” in the trailer text. Well, sadly, they meant Fede Alvarez, who brought us the not-great 2013 Evil Dead remake. I wonder how many people were expecting the original director’s Sam Raimi to be at the helm?
Alien Romulus is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 119 minutes
Release date: August 16th 2024
Studio: 20th Century Studios
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1; 1.90:1 (IMAX version) (ARRIRAW (4.6K)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 5/10
Director: Fede Alvarez
Producers: Gergö Balika, Walter Hill, Michael Pruss, Ridley Scott
Screenplay: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues
Characters: Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett
Music: Benjamin Wallfisch
Cast:
Rain: Cailee Spaeny
Andy: David Jonsson
Tyler: Archie Renaux
Kay: Isabela Merced
Bjorn: Spike Fearn
Navarro: Aileen Wu
WY Officer: Rosie Ede
10-Year Old Punk #1: Soma Simon
10-Year Old Punk #2: Bence Okeke
10-Year Old Punk #3: Viktor Orizu
Offspring: Robert Bobroczkyi
Xenomorph: Trevor Newlin
Voice of MU / TH / UR: Annemarie Griggs
Rook (facial and vocal performance): Daniel Betts
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.