And it was glorious.
What's The Movie About?
A group of young miners attempt to scavenge cryopods from a abandoned space station and must contend with the Xenomorphs frozen away on the station.
What I Like.
This movie is fucking awesome! The story is a lot of fun. It's set up to be the original Alien for a modern audience, but when they get to the space station the scenario shifts and it becomes it's own story. I like that because it gives us a lot of insight into the world of Alien itself. Most of the time the movies are set of uncolonized worlds and isolated ships, so it was cool to see how the average person lives on an isolated planet. I wasn't sure if I liked the ending or not at first, but after talking with someone who knew more about the Alien franchise, I think it is a cool payoff for a long standing question. Admittedly it does callback to Prometheus and Resurrection, and I can see long time fans getting annoyed by that if they hate those movies, but I thought the connection was the best they could've done. I also like Rain and Andy. They're adopted siblings that are basically our leads for the movie, and they're dynamic was cool. Rain is the typical Alien's protagonist, but she really cool fight scene. It's nice to see Cailee Spaeny in a movie that doesn't suck ass. And I really like Andy. He's an android that was programmed to do what's best for Rain by their parents, and is stuttering and prone to robot seizures, but tells terrible dad jokes. I wasn't sure if I like the autistic-coding on him at first, I mean he's literally that way because of physical damage to his mechanics. But his plot in the movie revolves around getting an extra chip implanted inside of him which less stutter-y and turns him evil, so the happiest outcome for him to to revert back to the way he was. (And besides, getting the chip didn't fix his seizures, so it's not like becoming neurotypical fixed all of his problems.) The acting in the movie is pretty good, so is the effects. I love that I hate seeing the face-huggers gigantic proboscises that get shoved down humans throat.
What I Didn't Like.
Only two complaints. One, one of the characters is a major douche bag. He's super racist to my sweet android boy and is literally the catalyst for everything going wrong in this movie. There's a part where his brother and Rain are talking about it's all their fault that things are going wrong and I'm like, "No no no, it was that fucking idiot's fault." The other thing is that it... uh... how do I explain this? So the first Alien was lowkey a feminism masterpiece. I mean, the whole Bechdel Test joke is that Alien is the only movie that passes. I heard the original script was written with all the characters being gender-neutral and they just changed them depending on who wanted to play which part, which I think is how any movie where gender or relationships isn't a focus of the story should do it. I've heard Aliens leans into it more, but I haven't seen that yet. Anyway, my point is Alien: Romulus backs away from that legacy and I found that disappointing. It's not sexist or anything, but there's just little things. When the crew goes into the space station, all the female characters stay behind. And yet the female pilot is somehow the first one to die! And Rain has to be taught to do anything by all the guy characters. The only thing she knows how to do on her own is reboot Andy. Again, it's not offensive, but it's definitely noticeable comparing it to the original.
Final Summation.
This movie is just as good as I hoped it would be! Definitely check it out if you like Alien, but maybe start else where if you don't have any knowledge of the franchise. Oh really Roan? Don't watch the seventh movie first? I'm shocked. Okay fair point Buggnutz, but the best sequels stand on their own somewhat. Alien: Romulus does achieve that, but the ending is easier to appreciate if you have more knowledge of the franchise.
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