A Brief History
On August 16, 2024, we rushed to our local theater to watch the newest edition of the Alien movie franchise, Alien: Romulus. Alas, we did not see this summer blockbuster sci fi pic in IMAX or the latest movie development, 4DX. Nonetheless, the movie experience was definitely a must see for any fan of the previous movies.
Digging Deeper
Even if you have not seen all or some of the previous Alien movies, our opinion is that viewers new to the franchise will still enjoy the film without knowing the subtle nods to the other editions.
As usual with big budget ($80 million) space films, the special effects are stunningly realistic. Kudos to the FX people involved. If you can believe in artificial gravity, you could believe you are watching real events taking place. Even the zero gravity scenes were pretty convincing as well. We marvel at Hollywood’s ability to give us such graphic eye candy.
Casting and directing were both solid, as was the acting. Lacking big name stars may actually help in some cases, as the viewer is not prone to think of the actor in any typecast way. The younger, fresh-faced cast is somehow more realistic than using Medicare qualified actors in action roles. Cailee Spaeny plays Rain, the protagonist, and she is ably assisted by her devoted android Andy, played by David Jonsson. In fact, without spoiling the film for you, Andy kind of takes over as the primary mover and shaker in the film, relied on by the humans to deal with the horror of the Xenomorphs, the title Alien creatures in the film.
The plot moves right along with no dull stretches, and our main criticism of the movie is the all too typical general darkness of many of the scenes. Come on people! You are in a spaceship, why don’t you turn the lights on? Even with the dim lighting, the sets are quite convincing. The late Ian Holme’s likeness is planted via CGI on Daniel Betts to portray a seriously damaged synthetic human (android) named Rook, a nod to the original Alien movie in which Holm played the character, Ash. While some have criticized the appearance of Rook/Holm, we believe the depiction was perfectly convincing.
Coming in at 119 minutes, the movie goes by quickly and there is no time to get bored. We enjoyed the film’s quality and visual appeal, but admit it lacked any iconic moments or scenes that are likely to become future memes. Like almost every movie and TV show we see lately, there is the obligatory vomit scene, which we would like to see eliminated from cinema!
Overall, we liked Alien: Romulus and can give it our recommendation for an end of summer movie treat. Critics seem to agree, as Rotten Tomatoes reports 81% of critics give the movie a positive rating and the audience rating, perhaps more importantly, is a healthy 87%. Young children that are easily terrified or sensitive might be best left at home, as there are plenty of moments of tension and horror that might shake tender psyches. Tweens and teens should be fine with the film’s content. Enjoy!
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What is your favorite Alien movie?
If you liked this article and would like to receive notifications of new articles, please feel welcome to follow History and Headlines on Facebook and X!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Moore, James, et al. Alien Series 7 Books Collection Set. Titan Books, 2020.
Thompson, Zac. Alien: Romulus. Marvel, 2024.
The featured image in this article is of a film poster for Alien: Romulus, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher or the creator of the work depicted. It is believed that the use of scaled-down, low-resolution images of film posters in article that to provides critical commentary on the film in question, not solely for illustration, on a website hosted on servers in the United States qualifies as fair use under the copyright law of the United States.
