Review: ‘Alien: Romulus’ Gets the ‘Alien’ Franchise in Ways That Other Films Don’t
While Ridley Scott’s Alien had all the bells and whistles that a Hollywood movie could have in the late 1970s, it had a simple soul. Alien: Romulus understands the original Alien in a way that most of its brethren do not. That will result in plenty of positive reviews for Alien: Romulus.
‘Alien: Romulus’ will get good reviews because it understands what it is supposed to be
Alien had a lot going for it in terms of aesthetics, performances, and the sheer novelty of the titular creature. At the end of the day, however, it was a simple slasher film where characters get picked off one by one before a final confrontation with the killer. Aliens was similar in its mix of simplicity and complexity. It had a lot to say about capitalism, the militaries of the future, and motherhood, but it knew it was a shoot-em-up action movie at heart.
Alien: Romulus has some of the first film’s Gothic elements and body horror and the second’s no-holds-barred intensity. While Scott’s prequel Prometheus got the film stuck in some muck about ancient aliens and space gods, Alien: Romulus has the good sense to get the franchise back to its roots. It’s not always the most thoughtful film, but it knows how to create an adrenaline rush.
‘Alien: Romulus’ understands the subtext of the original ‘Alien’
The other way in which Alien: Romulus knows thyself is that it returns to the theme of the first film: our cultural discomfort with pregnancy. It’s not hard to find analyses of Alien that frame it as a blood-spattered allegory for pregnancy and childbirth. While the biological themes of Scott’s film are subtextual, Alien: Romulus makes them much more explicit.
Here, one of the main characters is actually pregnant. The references to the life cycle are more brutal than they were in the previous movies. The imagery resonates. Even if we don’t remember it, we’ve all been there.
The director said audiences have reviewed the movie in their own way
During a 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez said viewers seem to be reacting positively to his film. “When I watch it with an audience — like I did last night for the first time with a big audience — I see it through their eyes,” he said. “It’s the first time you have a clue of what you made. The director is the last person to understand what the movie truly is because you’ve been in it every step of the way there.
“So it takes 10 years for me to watch my movies and understand, ‘Oh, that’s why people like it, or that’s why people didn’t like it,'” he added. “It takes me 10 years to really gain objectivity, but last night gave me a good glimpse of what works about [Alien: Romulus]. There’s a moment at the beginning of the third act [when Andy says, ‘Get away from her, you b****,’] and we got a great cheer in the audience, which was a relief to me. Whenever you hear cheers at some point, you go, ‘Thank God we had them.'”
Álvarez got the audience onboard for his Alien feature and we can only hope he will contribute to the franchise again.
