Good or bad taste is difficult to define, but easy to recognize. Alien: Romulusby Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez (who is known for his fantastic evil Dead film over a decade ago), offers a bizarre mix of both. It’s clear that Álvarez wants to build on the analog, tactile sci-fi vibes of the original Foreigner Movies, with plenty of satisfyingly turning knobs and low-fi computer screens that will delight any old-school fan. And with a great, young cast, including Civil WarCailee Spaeny and The Last of Us Isabela Merced, Romulus feels like it courts both the original Foreigner lovers and a younger, fresher group of potential fans. And it’s fast, too – the two hours fly by without any filler, and a perfectly timed build-up leads to a third act that keeps your heart racing almost the entire time.
But the big weakness in Romulus‘ Hull is its reliance on winks, nods and nostalgia – including a tasteless cameo that made me cringe every time the character appeared on screen. Although I think any casual Foreigner Fans will enjoy the film and miss many of the Easter eggs, there are some egregious references in the film that made me roll my eyes. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
Alien: Romulus looks damn good
Álvarez reportedly said the audience of the San Diego Comic-Con 2024, the Romulus required no prior knowledge of other Foreigner Movies, and that “member berries cannot be the full meal” (a reference to a South Park joke about nostalgia), but I’m not so sure that’s true. From that moment on Romulus begins, there are plenty of references – the opening scene shows the wreckage of the Nostromo, the spaceship from the first film, floating, for heaven’s sake, in the empty vacuum of space.
But then Álvarez quickly (and skillfully) draws attention to Alien: Romulus‘ consists of young adults living and working in a bleak, depressing mining colony called Jackson’s Star, where it’s always raining and everyone’s always sick. Rain Carradine (Spaeny) and her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), a damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic human reprogrammed by Rain’s late father to protect her at all costs, live a life of debt bondage – Rain is forced to work in the hopes of earning enough hours to leave Jackson’s Star and head to Yvaga II, a terraformed planet where things are less bleak.
After a Weyland-Yutani employee refuses Rain’s request to leave the planet, she seizes the chance to change her fate: a ragtag group of teenagers (and their friends) discover a “Weyu” ship drifting in the planet’s atmosphere, and they plan to fly there and steal its cryopods so they can head to Yvaga themselves. The problem? They need Andy, who can access all of the ship’s systems, although his odd gait and stutter indicate that he is not in perfect shape.
The relationship between Andy and Rain is the beating heart of RomulusPerfectly played by Spaeny and Jonsson, from the moment his big, sad eyes appear on screen, I know Andy is going to break my heart. Andy’s penchant for wordplay, which he finds difficult due to his stutter, makes him likable in an instant, and Rain’s good-natured annoyance at his bad jokes further shapes their beautiful relationship. Romulus tries to keep the rest of his character clichés as in previous Foreigner Movies starring a crass and rude Brit, his grim and pragmatic partner, a kind-hearted heartthrob and a sweet (and newly pregnant) best friend, and the young actors play them all well, even if their characters aren’t fully fleshed out yet. But Rain and Andy? I’d die for them.
Visually, Romulus is as perfect as a sci-fi horror movie can get. As the shuttle taking the teens to the abandoned Weyu ship (which is actually a disused outpost and, as you might suspect, full of facehuggers) ascends into the planet’s upper atmosphere, the visual effects are stunning: rain pelts the hull, lightning flashes all around, and strange red-orange veins of light thread through the clouds. As it breaks through the cloud cover, Rain sees the planet’s sun for the first time, and I feel a similar surge of awe in my stomach.
Romulus is truly beautiful, from the cinematography to the set design to the look of the iconic Xenomorphs. Álvarez plays impressively and effectively with color, light and texture (thin gray smoke, white-hot steam, pitch-black blood), and the perfect blend of practical and digital effects combines iconic Foreigner Iconography with impressive, modern technology. And then there is the digitally recreated elephant in the room.
Romulus and references
As I mentioned before, there are a lot of Easter eggs in Alien: RomulusThe disused outpost (divided into two large areas called Remus and Romulus) is powered by a computer called the MU/TH/UR 9000, a newer version of the computer that powered the Nostromo in 1979. Foreigner. When one of the motley crew members bullies and denigrates Andy, he stammers a quote from Aliensand said he preferred the term “artificial human,” just as Bishop told Ripley back then. The outpost’s door mechanisms are the same as in the 2014 survival horror game Alien: Isolation. Even the original Xenomorph that Ripley blows out of the Nostromo airlock haunts Romulus– his corpse hangs from the ceiling of the abandoned ship, his acidic blood has burned through several floors and destroyed the place.
But the most egregious Easter egg is a lazy one: a digitally recreated Ian Holm, who in the original film played a secret synthetic engineer put on the Nostromo by Weyland-Yutani to aid the company’s efforts to secure humanity’s fate in the stars by any means necessary. The digital avatar of Holm, who died in 2020, looks dire and sinister almost every time he’s on screen, and the fact that the damaged robot (which in Romulus) is just a torso that constantly leaks the synthetic’s iconic white diagnostic fluid, which makes it even worse. His appearance is so bizarre and unnecessary (and so prevalent, given that Rook has a lot of screen time) that it tarnishes so much of what Romulus pleasant.
From the moment Rook is introduced, I watch the rest Romulus squinting suspiciously as I wait for another Easter egg (maybe unintentional, maybe not) to break the fourth wall and hit me in the face with a “See what I did there?” Thankfully, the incredible acting of the cast and the perfectly timed action of the film effectively distract me from my fear that another reference is lurking in a dark corridor. There are several truly gruesome scenes – acid burning fingers, a facehugger artificially pumping a person’s lungs while hanging from them, the horrific cracking of ribs and spines, and a couple of brand new versions of the iconic scene in which the chest bursts– that will delight body horror fans. And all of this action is driven by Spaeny and Jonsson, with the latter taking his character on such an impressive turnaround that it leaves me speechless. Romulus also adds a bit more lore to the franchise, particularly about a certain stage in the Xenomorph’s evolution, which gives Álvarez an excuse to include a giant, wet, corrugated vagina in the film, just like HR Giger intended.
But just when I’ve forgotten about Holm’s torso lurking in a dimly lit corner, just when I’ve been enthralled by a zero-gravity action sequence involving floating, spiraling acid blood that Rain and Andy must avoid while suspended in mid-air, when I realize that Álvarez has timed the outpost’s countdown timer until it collides with the planet’s ice ring almost perfectly to the film’s running time, Romulus comes back to the references. The proto-pulse rifles from AliensRook quoted an exact quote from Holm in ForeignerSpaeny in her cryo underwear, brandishing a gun just like Ripley, Andy stammering: “Get away from her, you bitch”, a human/xeno hybrid that gives you goosebumps, a Face-to-face moment just like the meme.
Fortunately Romulus ends strong, with an emotionally powerful, delightfully gross final scene with a jump scare that nearly made me pee my pants. I just wish it had the confidence to stand on its own a bit more, rather than nodding with a wry smile and delivering recycled lines on a silver platter. Whether you’re a fan of the franchise or not, I believe Alien: Romulus is worth watching – perhaps some fans will love the references, and those who know nothing about Ridley Scott’s legendary sci-fi universe can remain blissfully ignorant and just enjoy some well-paced, well-filmed, and well-acted fun. In that respect, it’s a win-win.
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