Movie Review - Alien: Romulus

This movie was clearly made to appeal to the Gen-Z generation. And if it fails we'll be able to say: Gen-Z exterminated the alien threat. Every character, save one, is in their 20s. The cast is a collection of young adults trying to escape a life of servitude.

The good

If you're a lifelong Aliens fan, there's a lot to like about this movie. The movie opens with a ship arriving at the debris of the Nostromo. Right away we discover that this story takes place in the year 2142, between the events of the Alien and Aliens movies.

7:42●●● 95%

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There are many callbacks to the original Alien movie, and it is obvious that the character Rain, brilliantly played by Cailee Spaeny, is being molded into the next Ellen Ripley. There are a few short scenes that do a good job of echoing Aliens. Just look at the image from above. Does it remind you of anything?

Most of the action is pretty good. I thought the CG on the xenomorphs and face-huggers was done well. The CG on the android face, not so much.

Something that I appreciated the most about the movie is the attempt to capture the essence of the Gen-Z ethos in the young characters. All of the characters have either lost their parents to disease or accident and are now on their own to care for themselves in an inhospitable climate and a world of economic hardship. Early in the movie, we learn that they have a risky opportunity to escape their situation and travel to a distant star system where they can be free. The main character's biggest dream is to feel sunshine on her face.

The Bad

If you're a lifelong Aliens fan, there's a lot to hate about this movie. One of the hardest things to do in science fiction is to maintain a grounding in reality to make it believable. In my opinion, the one thing that is commonly done in alien movies that stretches belief or downright violates the laws of physics is how fast the aliens grow. The first alien movie suffered from this as the newly birthed alien creature became larger than a human overnight, with no apparent food source. In Alien: Romulus, that gets sped up to a matter of minutes. In my opinion, it's just lazy storytelling. The proper way to do it is to establish believable limitations and then stick to them. If there's a compelling reason to make the aliens grow at some astounding pace, then establish how that happens. It's okay if it's because of some magic-science-gobbly-gook. Just acknowledge that this is way out of the ordinary.

All things considered, this was a decent movie that had the potential to be excellent.

Jumping the shark

The writers and director apparently wanted to do more to pay homage to the first two alien movies than just adding a few similar scenes and lines of dialog. They tried to pull off the faux-ending that both originals did superbly. For me, this is where the story went off the rails and ventured into jumping-the-shark territory. If the movie had ended 10 minutes earlier, then I'd probably give it a C+.

Grade: D+

Plot
While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.