Alien: Romulus - Context & Perspective

Alien: Romulus – Context & Perspective On The New Franchise Entry (No Spoilers)

 

I was initially hesitant to write a review coming fresh out of the theatre after Alien: Romulus for a few reasons. Reason 1: my initial Alien: Covenant review became obsolete after my second viewing. At first, I didn’t mind that movie, but after I saw it a second time, I didn’t enjoy it very much, and the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. Reason 2: after I gave the newest entry in the Predator franchise, Prey, a highly positive review a couple years ago (maybe not quite glowing, but high), I swiftly forgot about it and haven’t had much desire to watch it again since that initial viewing. Did I really enjoy it as much as I seemed to express in that review? Maybe. I guess the fact that I haven't watched it again doesn’t really matter in relation to my Romulus review, and the Predator franchise has been separated from the Alien franchise for the past couple decades, anyway, after the two AVP movies were dismissed by fans and critics and subsequent movies distanced themselves from the crossover to make both franchises independent once again. But, the AVP movies were the ones that got me into this franchise initially, so I still consider them canon even if some folks beg to differ, and I still think of these franchises in relation to one another.

Reason 3: my feelings on Alien: Romulus are mixed, and I know I will need to see it a second time to decide what I really think of it. Some of my opinions or views may change, but that is an inevitability of being such a fan of these films. Just like how many fans initially dismissed Alien 3 but have since changed their minds on it, I likely will feel differently about Romulus down the line, but that doesn’t mean my initial thoughts and feelings are invalid. Final reason: there’s always the question of whether or not I have anything to say that’s coming from the heart when I consider writing a review for a new movie. Anyone can find an Alien: Romulus review online and read it, but will they all say the same thing I have to say? Some likely will, but I have lots of thoughts, and I think I can offer my own unique perspective, so I set the reasons not to write a review aside, and got into it—like, really got into it, beyond just a simple review, which you can also check out here if you haven’t:

http://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2024/08/alien-romulus-review.html

Now, I present this more detailed analysis, without spoiling anything, which will be followed by a third and final spoiler review.

The Alien franchise has existed in three phases—not like the phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though. These are not official; I’m making them up. First there was the Quadrilogy Phase: Alien (1979), followed by Aliens (1986), then Alien 3 (1992), and Alien: Resurrection (1997). Four movies, four different directors, all in sequence, all about main character Ellen Ripley. Then there was the AVP Phase. This 2000’s double-feature mishmash brought together the xenomorph and 20^th Century Fox’s other deadly extraterrestrial from the Predator franchise for battles on earth, making them prequels to the Alien Quadrilogy and sequels to Predator and Predator 2. Now, we are in the third phase. This one started with Prometheus (2012), set long before the original Alien but also quite some time after the AVP movies, with no acknowledgement of the latter, followed by Alien: Covenant (2017), and now, we have Alien: Romulus.

Even though there were seven whole years between the first and second films, and the first of many sequels was helmed by a completely different creative force from the original, Aliens picks the story up in an instantly engaging way and doesn’t miss a beat. If you don’t already know it’s one of the best sequels of all-time, go read the pages and pages of praise I’ve written about it. I find it interesting that there have been the same number of years between this new Alien film and the last, but the circumstances are completely different. Last time, we got a sequel to the prequel, which was barely a prequel at all (confused yet?), and now we have a straight reboot. Even though it’s not really being marketed that way, Alien: Romulus does not “stand on its own” as some of the marketing has been saying—at least, not for hardcore, longtime fans.

I saw it with my girlfriend who has only seen the original Alien once. She is my representative for the audience I am not: viewers who have an idea of what Alien is all about but don’t know the intricacies of the universe or its messy history, and just want to watch a new science fiction horror film, as well as those who are new to it and know nothing about the past films. Romulus functions completely fine if you know nothing about Alien, by design. In fact, I think it’s likely to play better to less familiar audiences compared to longtime fans, despite feeling like it was made to appease those who love the earlier films and those who may lament some of the directions the sequels and prequels went in, while still tying them in to its overall mythology.

So, Romulus somehow manages to stand on its own and tie into the previous films in this third phase of the franchise, which is both a brilliant and baffling result. I had fairly low expectations for it, but was cautiously optimistic because of the director and co-writer, Fede Alvarez. Instead of first comparing Alien: Romulus to the franchise its tied so tightly into despite being described as a “standalone midquel” (the terminology has lost all meaning to me at this point), I’ll compare it to Alvarez’s previous films. His directorial debut was the 2013 Evil Dead remake, which was an impressive, gory reimagining of the original, and that’s the film that made him seem so well positioned to take the reins of Alien, but it was his second feature, 2016’s Don’t Breathe, that made me more interested in what he could do with the xenomorph, because that was an original, taut survival-horror/thriller with a confined setting and no shortage of clever character moments. Then, he made The Girl in the Spider’s Web in 2018, a sort-of-reboot to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, but that wasn’t in the horror genre, so it can be ignored. Honestly, I don’t even remember anything about it, other than Claire Foye’s committed performance.

Alien: Romulus captures the dread he conjured in Don’t Breathe and makes the characters likable in the first act before they become stranded in a place of nightmares. He uses his skills demonstrated in Evil Dead (again with co-writer Rodo Sayagues) of building a new narrative with new characters around the bones of the same story as the original, with pointed callbacks, references, and even repeated dialogue, but what he doesn’t bring over from Evil Dead is the creative gore. The original Alien was not an overly gory film (minus that chestburster scene, obviously), taking the Texas Chainsaw Massacre approach in keeping most of the blood and guts offscreen or obscured by darkness, but also accomplishing this through intentional editing and a focus on suspense. Romulus, for the most part, keeps the gory moments sparse in an attempt to make them more impactful, which was fine, but it’s that story structure and those callbacks that will be the point of contention for those who are truly tuned in to the franchise and its many strange offerings over the past forty-five years. 

My hope had been that under the creative direction of a younger director who reveres the scariest aspects of all past films, the Alien franchise would be rejuvenated with a new, original story set in the same universe. The previous films, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, were sold on the fact that Ridley Scott, the director of the original, had returned to the franchise to tell the multi-film origins of the creature, which he had wanted to do for many years, but after Prometheus evolved into something further away from the original Alien (not just in story terms but in genre terms, even, going more sci-fi/adventure than horror) and many fans shrugged their shoulders at it, he went back on his own word and made a sequel that dispensed with the more interesting aspects of Prometheus to seemingly appease audiences who wanted more of the old school H.R. Giger creature design and more horror and more claustrophobic tension in grimy corridors, I.E. more of the same.

I, for one, did not want more of the same. I enjoyed Prometheus, and while I still have problems with it, I appreciate that it isn’t just Alien redone over again, in spite of keeping many of the same elements. Even though I found Alien: Covenant a disappointment and more cheaply made in comparison, I now look back on it and have to at least admit I appreciate it sort of tried to do something different, at least in the first half, only to lose the plot and devolve into the same old thing by the end, just with worse visual effects and boring characters. I didn’t expect Alien: Romulus to tie in as much with those prequel films as it did, but I think it’s because Ridley Scott is still really the one running this show.

Scott was derided for coming back to the franchise he had helped kickstart decades earlier once Prometheus began unravelling the greatest mysteries left unsolved with a convoluted tale of far grander galactic stakes and mythology that paled in comparison to the simplistic but brilliantly crafted original. He felt the creature from Alien (and all the sequels) wasn’t scary anymore, so therefore focused elsewhere, but audiences disagreed, so he brought the xenomorph back for Alien: Covenant, only it’s not technically the exact same kind, but fans had grown used to variants since the very first sequel, so for all intents and purposes, yeah, it’s basically the original creature again. After Covenant, fans were even more disinterested, as the mystery of the xenomorph was diminished further. So, Scott stepped back from directing and just produced Alien: Romulus, but it still has his fingerprints on it.

From what I’ve read, Romulus was Alvarez’s own original idea, but I think it was only produced because it was a safe bet. Under the Disney banner of 20^th Century Studios, Alien: Romulus looks, sounds, and feels like the Alien of old, even more so than the previous prequels or the AVP movies. But, it is still a part of this third phase of Alien movies, because it still has that Ridley Scott prequel status of being its own thing superficially but also being the same thing just below the surface, and being connected to his previous two films despite being set far apart in the timeline. I disliked Alien: Covenant for all the ripping off it did of previous Alien movies (and its resultant fumbling of following up Prometheus), but now, Alien: Romulus is being called a “homage” by some of its defenders even though it did the same thing just in different ways.

I saw a comment online that basically said this is probably as good as a new Alien movie is going to get in 2024, so that will have to be good enough, even though it’s a far cry from Alien and Aliens. I disagree. Why should we resign ourselves to mediocrity? I wouldn’t call Romulus mediocre, exactly, but it’s not that much better than some of the other sequels in the franchise, and certainly can’t touch Alien or Aliens. If Aliens is as good as it gets in terms of sequels, why shouldn’t that remain the bar to reach? Just because we’re in an era of reboots that have connective tissue so thick its like scar tissue and studio mandates about diversity quotas being met and the burden of being jaded by everything because it feels like we’ve seen it all at this point with constant inundation of new media, doesn’t mean we need to be content to buy the same model of vehicle over and over again with a new paint job and slightly new features.

Alien: Romulus is the first new Alien movie since the franchise was acquired by Disney upon purchase of 20^th Century Fox, and in some ways it was much better than I expected, yet much worse in other ways I didn’t expect. I can’t say much more at this point without spoiling some of the specifics, so I will wrap up this context and perspective midquel analysis set between my spoiler-free review and my spoiler-filled review coming soon by clarifying that I didn’t dislike Alien: Romulus, especially not in the same ways I disliked Alien: Covenant, but it didn’t quite achieve what I hoped it would, though it came close.