Alien Romulus Review: Viciously Vibey, Regressively Referential

Good or bad taste is difficult to define, but easy to point out, and Alien: Romulus, from Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez (who famously delivered a fantastic Evil Dead flick over a decade ago), offers a bizarre mix of both. It’s clear that Álvarez wants to hearken back to the analog, tactile sci-fi vibes of the original Alien flicks, with plenty of satisfyingly twisty knobs and low-fi computer screens that will delight any old-school fan. And with a great, young cast that includes Civil War’s Cailee Spaeny and The Last of Us’ Isabela Merced, Romulus feels like it’s courting both the original Alien lovers and a younger, fresher group of potential fans. And it’s fast, too—the two-hour run-time flies by without any filler, and a perfectly paced build-up results in a third act that will have your heart pumping almost the entire time.

But the massive weak point in Romulus’ hull is its reliance on winks, nods, and nostalgia—including one poor-taste cameo that made me cringe every time the character was on-screen. Though I think any casual Alien fan will enjoy the film and miss many of the Easter eggs, there are some egregious references throughout that had my eyes rolling around in my head. Nostalgia is a helluva drug.

Alien: Romulus looks damn good

Álvarez reportedly told the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con crowd that seeing Romulus didn’t require prior knowledge of other Alien films, 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 the moment Romulus opens, there are references aplenty—the opening shot shows the wreckage of the Nostromo, the ship from the first film, floating in the empty vacuum of space, for Engineer’s sake.

Though after that, Álvarez swiftly (and smartly) turns the attention to Alien: Romulus’ cast of young adults, who live and work in a dreary, depressing mining colony called Jackson’s Star where it’s always raining and everyone is always sick. Rain Carradine (Spaeny) and her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), a damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic reprogrammed by Rain’s late father to protect her at all costs, live a life of indentured servitude—Rain is forced to work in the hopes that she’ll earn enough hours to leave Jackson’s Star and head to Yvaga II, a terraformed planet that’s less miserable.

After a Weyland-Yutani employee denies Rain’s request to go off-planet, she jumps at the chance to change her fate: A ragtag bunch of teenagers (and her friends) discover a “Weyu” ship drifting in the planet’s atmosphere, and they want to fly up and steal its crypods so they can venture out to Yvaga themselves. The problem? They need Andy, who can access all of the ship’s systems, even though his strange gait and stammer indicate that he isn’t in perfect working condition.

Andy and Rain’s relationship is the beating heart of Romulus, played to perfection 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 affinity for puns, which he struggles to get out due to his stammer, endears you to him within moments, and Rain’s good-natured annoyance at his bad jokes further defines their lovely relationship. Romulus tries to fill out the rest of its character tropes like previous Alien films, with a crass and rude British guy, his grim, no-nonsense partner, a kind-hearted heartthrob, and a sweet (and newly pregnant) best friend, and the young actors all play them well, even if their characters aren’t fully fleshed out. But Rain and Andy? I’d die for them.

Visually, Romulus is as close to perfect as a sci-fi horror flick can get. When the shuttle carrying the teens up to the derelict Weyu ship (which is actually a decommissioned outpost, and, as you might suspect, full of facehuggers) soars upward into the planet’s upper atmosphere, the visual effects dazzle: rain pelts the hull, lightning flashes all around it, and strange, red-orange veins of light run through the clouds. When it bursts through the cloud cover, Rain sees the planet’s sun for the first time ever, and I feel a similar stirring of awe in my gut.

Romulus truly is beautiful, from the cinematography to the set design to the way the iconic xenomorphs look. Álvarez impressively and effectively plays with color, light, and texture (wispy gray smoke, white-hot steam, tar-black blood), and the pitch-perfect mix of practical and digital effects blends iconic Alien iconography with impressive, modern tech. And then there’s the digitally recreated elephant in the room.

Romulus and references

As I mentioned, there are a lot of Easter eggs in Alien: Romulus. The decommissioned outpost (split into two massive sections called Remus and Romulus) is powered by a computer called MU/TH/UR 9000, a newer version of the one running the Nostromo in 1979’s Alien. When one of the motley crew members bullies and denigrates Andy, he stammers back a quote from Aliens, saying he prefers the term “artificial human” just like Bishop told Ripley back then. The outpost’s door mechanisms are the same ones from 2014 survival horror game Alien: Isolation. Hell, even the original xenomorph, the one Ripley blows out of the Nostromo airlock, haunts Romulus—its corpse is suspended from the ceiling in the derelict ship, its acid blood having burnt through several floors and destroyed the place.

But the most egregious Easter egg is a rotten one: a digitally recreated Ian Holm, who played a secret synthetic in the original film that was placed on the Nostromo by Weyland-Yutani to help further the company’s attempts to secure humanity’s fate in the stars by any means necessary. The digital avatar of Holm, who passed away in 2020, looks bad and uncanny almost every time it’s on screen, and the fact that the damaged robot (who goes by Rook in Romulus) is just a torso perpetually leaking the synthetic’s iconic white diagnostic fluid makes it even worse. His appearance is so bizarre and unnecessary (and so prevalent, as Rook has a ton of screen time), that it sours so much of what makes Romulus enjoyable.

From the moment Rook is introduced, I watch the rest of Romulus with my eyes narrowed suspiciously, waiting for another Easter egg to (perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not) puncture the fourth wall and boop me on the nose with a “see what I did there?” Thankfully, the cast’s incredible acting and the film’s perfectly paced action effectively distract me from my fear of another reference lurking down a dark corridor. There are several truly gruesome scenes—acid burning off fingers, a facehugger artificially pumping someone’s lungs while attached to them, the gnarly cracking of ribs and spines, and a few brand-new takes on the iconic chest bursting scene—that will delight body horror fans. And all of this action is propelled forward by Spaeny and Jonsson, the latter of whom does such an impressive 180 with his character that it leaves me speechless. Romulus also adds a bit more lore to the franchise, specifically around a certain stage in the xenomorph’s evolution, that gives Álvarez an excuse to put a giant, wet, undulating vagina in the film, just as H.R. Giger intended.

But just when I’ve forgotten about the torso of Holm lurking in a dimly lit corner, when I’ve just been delighted by a zero-G action sequence that involves floating, spiraling acid blood Rain and Andy must avoid while suspended in mid-air, when I realize that Álvarez almost perfectly times the outpost’s countdown timer until it will collide with the planet’s icy ring to the runtime of the film, Romulus comes back around to the references. The proto pulse rifles from Aliens, Rook spouting an exact quote Holm uttered in Alien, Spaeny in her cryo-undies wielding a gun just like Ripley, Andy stammering “get away from her you bitch,” a human/xeno hybrid that makes your skin crawl, a face-to-face moment just like the meme.

Thankfully, Romulus ends strong, with an emotionally powerful, deliciously disgusting final scene with a jump-scare that almost made me pee myself. I just wish that it had the confidence to stand on its own a bit more, rather than deliver nods and recycled lines on a silver platter with a wry smile. Though, whether you’re a fan of the franchise or not, I believe Alien: Romulus is worth a watch—maybe some fans will adore the references, and those who know nothing about Ridley Scott’s legendary sci-fi universe can remain blissfully unaware and just enjoy a well-paced, well-shot, well-acted romp. It’s a win-win in that regard.

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