Good or bad taste is challenging to define, but uncomplicated to point out and Alien: Romulusfrom Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez (who is famed for his fantastic Evil Dead flick from over a decade ago), offers a strange mix of both. It’s clear that Álvarez wants to hark back to the analog, actual sci-fi feel of the original Stranger movies, with plenty of satisfyingly twisted knobs and low-fi computer screens that will delight any old-school fan. And with a great adolescent cast that includes Civil WarCailee Spaeny and The Last of Us Isabella Merced, Romulus it looks like he’s trying to get the original Stranger lovers and a younger, fresher group of potential fans. And it’s brisk, too — the two-hour runtime flies by without any filler, and a perfectly timed buildup of tension leads into a third act that will keep your heart pounding almost the entire time.
But a huge frail point in Romulus‘hull is all about winks, nods, and nostalgia — including one tasteless cameo that made me cringe every time the character appeared on screen. Although I think any random Stranger fans will enjoy the movie and miss out on a lot of easter eggs, there are a few blatant references that made me roll my eyes in my head. Nostalgia is a damn powerful drug.
Alien: Romulus looks damn good
Álvarez reportedly said the crowd at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con who saw Romulus it did not require prior knowledge of others Stranger movies and that “membership berries cannot be a complete meal” (referring to South Park joke about nostalgia), but I’m not sure if it’s true. From the moment Romulus There are a lot of references at the beginning of the film – the first shot shows the wreck of the Nostromo, the ship from the first film, floating in the vacuum of space for the Engineer’s exploit.
Although Álvarez later quickly (and wisely) turns his attention to Alien: Romuluscast of adolescent adults who live and work in a bleak, depressing mining colony called Jackson’s Star, where it rains all the time and everyone is ill all the time. Rain Carradine (Spaeny) and her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), a damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic reprogrammed by Rain’s deceased father to protect her at all costs, live a life of indentured servitude — Rain is forced to work in hopes of earning enough hours to leave Jackson’s Star for Yvaga II, a terraformed planet that is less miserable.
After a Weyland-Yutani employee rejects Rain’s request to leave the planet, Rain seizes an opportunity to change her fate: a gang of teenagers (and her friends) discover the ship “Weyu” floating in the planet’s atmosphere, and they want to fly in and steal its cryptopods so they can go to Yvaga themselves. The problem? They need Andy, who has access to all the ship’s systems, even though his odd gait and stutter indicate he’s not in perfect working order.
Andy and Rain’s relationship is the beating heart RomulusPlayed to perfection by Spaeny and Jonsson, from the moment his substantial, unhappy eyes appear on screen, I know Andy is going to break my heart. Andy’s fondness for puns, which he has difficulty with because of his stutter, makes you like him within moments, and Rain’s good-natured irritation with his bad jokes further defines their wonderful relationship. Romulus tries to fill in the rest of his character tropes like before Stranger movies, with the rude and boorish Brit, his dour, pragmatic partner, his good-natured love interest, and his sweet (and recently pregnant) best friend, and the adolescent actors play them well, even if their characters aren’t fully developed. But Rain and Andy? I’d die for them.
Visually, Romulus is as close to perfect as a sci-fi horror movie can get. As the shuttle carrying the teenagers to the abandoned Weyu ship (which is actually a decommissioned outpost and, as you might guess, riddled with facehuggers) ascends into the planet’s upper atmosphere, the visuals are dazzling: rain lashes the hull, lightning flashes around it, and strange red-orange veins of delicate run through the clouds. As he breaks through the cloud cover, Rain sees the planet’s sun for the first time, and I feel a similar stirring of awe in my gut.
Romulus is truly stunning, from the cinematography, through the set design, to the iconic Xenomorphs. Álvarez plays impressively and effectively with color, delicate, and texture (wavy gray smoke, white-hot steam, pitch-black blood), and the perfect combination of practical and digital effects combines iconic Stranger iconography with impressive, state-of-the-art technology. And then there’s the digitally recreated elephant in the room.
Romulus and references
As I mentioned, there are Very Easter eggs in Alien: RomulusThe decommissioned facility (divided into two massive sections called Remus and Romulus) is powered by a computer called the MU/TH/UR 9000, a newer version of the computer that operated the Nostromo in 1979. StrangerWhen one of the colorful crew members bullies and humiliates Andy, he stammers and repeats a quote from Alienssaying he prefers the term “artificial human,” as Bishop told Ripley at the time. The facility’s door mechanisms are the same as those in the 2014 survival horror game Alien: IsolationHell, even the original Xenomorph, the one Ripley drops out of the Nostromo’s airlock, is haunted Romulus—his body hangs from the ceiling of an abandoned ship, his acidic blood having burned several floors and destroyed the entire place.
But the most glaring Easter egg is a rotten one: a digitally recreated Ian Holm, who played a secret synthetic in the original film who was placed on the Nostromo by Weyland-Yutani to support the company secure humanity’s fate in the stars at all costs. The digital avatar of Holm, who died in 2020, looks evil and eerie almost every time he appears on screen, and the fact that the damaged robot (who in Romulus) is just a torso that constantly leaks the synthetic’s iconic white diagnostic fluid, which makes it even worse. Its appearance is so bizarre and unnecessary (and so common, since Rook gets a ton of screen time) that it ruins a lot of what makes Romulus nice.
From the moment Rook appears, I watch the rest Romulus with suspiciously narrowed eyes, waiting for the next Easter egg that (maybe unintentionally, maybe not) will break the fourth wall and hit me in the nose with a “see what I did?”. Fortunately, the incredible acting of the cast and the perfectly balanced action of the film effectively distract me from the fear of the next reference lurking in the murky hallway. There are some truly gruesome scenes – acid burning fingers, a facehugger artificially inflating someone’s lungs while being attached to them, horrible cracking of ribs and spines, and several completely modern shots the iconic chest ripping scene—which will delight fans of body horror. And the whole action is driven by Spaeny and Jonsson, the latter of whom does such an impressive 180 with his character that it takes my breath away. Romulus It also adds a bit more lore to the series, especially about a certain stage of the Xenomorph’s evolution, which gives Álvarez a reason to include a giant, saturated, heaving vagina in the film, just like HR Giger intended.
But just when I had forgotten about Holm’s torso lurking in a dimly lit corner, just when I was thrilled by the zero-G action sequence with the floating, swirling acidic blood that Rain and Andy must avoid while suspended in midair, just when I realized that Álvarez has timed the outpost’s countdown to the moment it collides with the planet’s icy ring almost perfectly, Romulus back to references. Proto-pulse shotguns with AliensRook said Holm’s exact quote StrangerSpaeny in cryogenic underwear, brandishing a gun like Ripley, Andy stammering “get away from her, bitch”, a human-xenomorph hybrid that gives you goosebumps, a moment of meeting face to face, just like in a meme.
Luckily, Romulus ends strongly, emotionally powerfully, deliciously disgustingly in a final scene with a jump scare that nearly made me pee my pants. I just wish the film had the confidence to stand on its own, instead of delivering nods and repeated lines on a silver platter with a wry smile. Although, whether you’re a fan of the series or not, I believe Alien: Romulus worth a watch — maybe some fans will love the references, while those who know nothing about Ridley Scott’s legendary sci-fi universe can remain blissfully unaware and just enjoy a well-plotted, well-shot, well-acted romp. In that respect, it’s a win-win situation.
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