Alien: Romulus (2024) | a Review
originally published on 22/10/2025;
Hello everyone, I am the corporation hater, G.E.M.Simov, a fellow so in debt that I’ve miraculously become a gorillionaire, here to tell you about the 2024 film “Alien: Romulus”.
Simple review details - I rank films on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
A disclaimer - the terms 'movie' and 'film' will be used interchangeably in this review.
Presentation
“Alien: Romulus” is yet another entry in the Alien franchise, and, as such, it is a mixture of horror, thriller and maybe even action, but mostly, in the case of this particular film, thriller. It also features ALL the staples - the face-hugger, the chest-burster and the xenomorph. The first two of those, whenever they wind up shown to the audience, look quite good, and they even appear in a few interestingly shot scenes.
A stand-out is, of course, the one that wound up a bit ruined by the trailer - in which a Character holds up a funky machine to her back, which machine then illuminates her insides (as it is some portable x-ray), revealing that in her chest is a chest-burster.
Another interesting scene in which the face-huggers got some good use was not spoiled by the trailer, or I, at least, do not remember it appearing in any promotional materials, in which some Characters must walk through a face-hugger infested space, and they manage to render themselves hidden - roughly - from the creatures, but must sneak through. That particular scene managed to build up a decent amount of dread, pulling on some cords and making use of the anxiety provided by such an encounter.
As stated, the face-huggers are well utilized, in particular their features - both those that render them reminiscent of spiders and those that give them an appearance that calls in memories of scorpions. In fact, this is the first time in an Alien movie that I actually found myself considering how curiously horrible the face-huggers were designed to look, from that particular point of view - they are evocative of some very nasty feelings, in particular the fear of spiders and other such creepy-crawlies. The design is good, and the usage is also not bad at all.
So, straight off the bat, I am saying that this movie does a lot of things right. It uses what it is given in a very appropriate manner… But it does have a few missteps. When the Xenomorph rolls around, it has a couple of good scenes before being relegated to being completely insubstantial. It does a bit of creeping, a bit of crawling, a bit of killing as well - but then it stops doing that.
It becomes more of an obstacle, a bit of a peon for the Characters to overcome, rather than an end-all be-all murderthing. The reason that the Xenomorph was scary and managed to be an adequate enemy with whom the Characters in previous iterations of “Alien” had to contend with was because it was mysterious, slow and deliberate, or at least gave off the impression that it was such. In this movie, the Xenomorph starts off a bit slow, a bit deliberate - creating the illusory idea that it will actually be like that to the very end - and then it stops being that. It becomes a critter - a threatening critter, of course - but it loses the weight that it should have, and that occurs due to the fact that the film shows it off in a silly, unflattering light. Not only that, but it also features MANY Xenomorphs getting slaughtered by a complete novice at wielding a gun, which brings into question everything established about the Xenomorph.
The Xenomorph is the kind of entity that should never be fully shown off to the audience. It should be displayed in shadow, or in conditions that keep its form somewhat obscured… And if it were to be shown in its full ‘glory’, it should not be done in an undignifying manner, for everything that does is diminish the fear factor. The creature stops being scary; it might be a threat, but it stops being something that brings fear with itself.
So the film gets a 2 out of 3, right? Well, not really. The film also introduces another creature - a wholly new monster - and while the issue here is that it fails to do anything interesting with it, aside from having it look sufficiently deformed and disturbing, and involving a scene that was especially dismaying, and sufficiently chilling, there was actually only a large swathe of missed opportunities.
This new creature’s appearance fails to make a lot of sense, its behavior fails to make sense, and the way it interacts with the world, regardless of its behavior, also fails to make sense. So the film fails on half of its monsters, and the other half take part in scenes that are not all entirely satisfying from the perspective of a horror film.
In fact, the movie fails at being a horror flick quite spectacularly. Perhaps that happens because of the intensity of the recycling in effect, due to the fact that the whole film is just ‘Alien’ all over again, but a bit differently. Alternatively, it fails at being a horror flick because the audience already knows everything about the monsters, and whenever the new monster is introduced, the conditions have been altered and the film is no longer horror, instead being more of a thriller, or even an action movie.
That’s another failing entirely, because the action is not interesting, though that is contextual. On top of that, there is no real thrill to it, because, after all, if the audience has seen any movies in the franchise, then they know how all of them end, and there winds up being no real tension.
Lastly, the horror - the horror is also middling at best. The most ‘terrifying’ scenes are ones that rely on tickling one’s brain by hovering concepts and showing them off in a new light, which teeters on the border of just being disturbing and disgusting, rather than scary. The chest burster still in one’s chest, the face-huggers, the effects of a certain substance… Those worked, they were relatively fine.
Then there are the jump-scares. Of course, we can not have a horror movie without jump-scares, cheap, worthless garbage that works every time and is just a jolt of adrenaline that preys upon mankind’s survival instinct. The film features a number of those, but, thankfully, they are not gratuitously used. Perhaps sparingly, there are loud noises and rapid movements following moments of silence, but the overall expression left by the film is that it was not really scary, not in the good way and not in the bad way.
So aside from looking good - with most of the scenes being well lit, even if they take place in darkness, which is, surprisingly, a thing that has become ‘difficult’ to do in contemporary cinema - the film does not do anything too spectacular. It barely manages to stick to its genre, though not in a convincing manner, and it fails to utilize its monsters to the desired effect, instead diminishing the frightfulness of said monsters and neutralizing them as creatures, turning them into nothing more than obstacles, rather than opponents.
Additionally, sound-wise, the film is competent. Nothing stuck out as being out of place, and the music was present, though not overly memorable. Thus, it gets a pass, as it is presented relatively well. 2/3
Acting
Surprisingly, the acting is the best part of this movie. The entire cast did a good job, but I would like to especially focus on David Jonsson, who ultimately winds up playing two characters, and both of them are compelling entities to follow. The other characters in the film are also relatively believable, especially those who die a bit earlier than the rest, maybe because they wound up being in the horror portion of the film, rather than veering off into the action portion, wherein everything became a bit… A bit silly.
There was also the matter of Ian Holm being… In the movie, but not? As far as I can tell, the character he plays in the original Alien, or an equivalent of him, is present in the film, but is not actually played by Ian Holm. Instead, the role is filled by Daniel Betts, but I would not have known that if I had not taken a look at the credits.
The heights to which special effects can go now are very peculiar, because it was convincing. How much of it was acting, how much of it was the work of the computer? Was AI involved, for these things seem to be prime AI material. Regardless, that was odd - it was a good performance, though.
There were some wheezes here and there, of course, but it was all owed up to passable, rather than bad performances. Oddly enough, the two most prominent characters - aside from the one played by David Jonsson - are the middling performances, presented to the audience by Cailee Spaeny and Archie Renaux.
Even though that’s present, overall - I am more than satisfied with the work that was done on this film. 3/3
Story
“Alien: Romulus” is just Alien, but told to the audience a bit differently. There is a larger emphasis on the androids/synthetic humans than there is in Alien, and stuff takes place, largely, in the abandoned ship where the alien is encountered, rather than on the ship used by the victims of the alien, but the formula is roughly the same, and it all ends… The exact same way, too.
I want to pay a bit of lip service to the synthetic human content in this film. It was the most engaging and thought provoking part of it, as it kept posing the question of whether or not a synthetic that was like those in the film itself could be regarded as more than just machines. Pleasantly, there was nuance when it came to the answer, and what I roughly derived from the whole thing was that it's a tentative “maybe”, dependent on said synthetic humans being allowed to be human.
That was interesting, due to the fact that both the more human, or, rather, completely human in behavior Andy (as well as his less human variant), and the totally inhuman Rook, are ultimately driven by a directive, or a set of directives. However, one is working in accordance with a corporation’s interests (and thus, unsurprisingly, is wholly inhuman and monstrous), while the other is working in accordance with a single human’s interests.
Frankly, that is all that needs to be said, as dealing with a human’s desires and wants makes one so human adjacent that they are nearly indistinguishable from a human, whereas working in a corporation and taking its interests to heart (as some actual humans do in contemporary times) renders the synthetic human… Inhuman, clearly different from what a human is.
With that out of the way - clearly shown off in the film as it was interpreted here, frankly - let me get back to the story and inform the reader that it is middling at best.
A bunch of youngsters, barely out of their teens, living on some god-forsaken rock in space, where everyone is dying from disease and horrible working conditions (can not be altered, too many resources required, the corporation knows best, every death - a necessary sacrifice) find a funky derelict space station up in the atmosphere. So they go up to it, thinking they’ll steal the cryo pods and then get out of the mining hell-hole they are on. That’s reasonably well set up and believable - and it builds tension, because the audience has been shown things and knows things that the characters do not.
Easy as pie, however things get alien. They get to the station, they get a bunch of cryo pods - more than enough for them - but woe, not enough fuel. They find fuel in a weirdly flooded spot, then take it, and… It was powering a freezer of sorts (not explained), which immediately starts warming up (temperatures do not change that rapidly, do they?) resulting in a slew of face-huggers to get thawed out and fall into the water for a clunky set-piece. Googoo, gaga, one of the dudes gets face hugged. That is… Unfortunate, in a sense, because there is clearly a lot more of the movie left, and the good sort of spooks is cut short here. No longer will there be any tension and dread, instead it will be that other type of tension - and action. It is easy to tell that that will follow, even if one has not seen the rest of the film - the quiet, disquieting moments are through.
In an attempt to figure out how to save her, the lads turn a halved synthetic human found on the station on, and he tells them what for. They do manage to remove the face-hugger, but it has already done its thing, so the android says to their android that he gotta do something about it, and the whole android (Andy) decides that he will do something about it. Alas, he fails, because half of the crew gets uppity and stops him, shoves itself in the ship they boarded the station with, then the pilot (the one face-hugged) gets her chest burst, and they subsequently crash back into the station.
This here is problematic, in the sense that it does not make enough sense. There is some stuff that has been said and shown in the movie, up until this point, that indicates a certain character dislikes robots, which is obviously introduced as both a means to ask peculiar questions (regarding robots and making ethical decisions), but also, and it appears mostly, as a means of setting this scene up and saying that it makes sense for the crew to get separated, so that they then have to go through the station in an attempt to get to one another and die in the process.
The three who are left go to try and retrieve their comrades, but before that Andy gets a little chat with the halved android, and gets his directive overwritten (thanks to some shenanigans involving chips being exchanged so as to get more clearance to open doors here and there). That presents more… Weirdness, because it appears as though older versions of these androids are more human, more humanoid, than newer ones. Then again, it is dependent on their directive, which introduces certain questions and ponderings that could be worthwhile.
Meanwhile, the chest burster morphs into a Xenomorph in record time, one of the two surviving crewmates pokes it with enough electricity to kill a human and then gets acid bled over, thus dying. Only one person left on the ship, and she tries running away, hidingly. Unfortunately, that’s not good enough.
On their way to the ship, the trio of survivors runs into the most unfathomable thing imaginable - a situation that can be just tense, but will clearly wind up being more than tense (because whenever there is a carrot, there is also a stick), and so this Chekhov gun goes off - Facehuggers in a room, the trio sneaks through, but then they get a call, one of them reacts, body temperature shenanigans and, of course, we have to run away.
That scene, while being a neat action sequence, is also one of the scenes that introduces doubt within the human pair. Andy appears to have been almost ready to shut the gate before our lad could make it, but there is enough ambiguity to say that it was not intentional. There it is again, the moment when we start asking ourselves questions - can AI really make ethical decisions? And, if so, what’s up with that?
Regardless, we go on to have the two groups almost reunite - but then they don’t, and the pregnant survivor is taken (presumed dead, but who knows?)
With that, the trio is led by Andy, who takes them to a funky lab, which lab features guns, with which the two humans arm themselves, making quips about video games and going on about how the guns are so automated that the one holding them does not even need to do anything. In that lab, we, the audience, see one more thing of note - very special, very magical vials of matter, which appears to be material that makes up the Xenomoprhs and makes them as funky as they are.
It’s a cure-all panacea turn-into-god meme, and it’s very appealing, but the audience is shown that it is not actually that appealing. Then, the trio goes out, finds the pregnant girl - wow - frees her, but notes that she is not feeling very well and is totally dying. Her brother gets killed by a xenomorph in a very silly way, then Andy gets back to being who he was before (old chip is back in town), and we see such incredible Xenomorph slaughter that it is not even funny. How did a humongous station like Romulus get overrun by Xenomorphs if one totally untrained person can just grab a gun and kill… 26 Xenomorphs.
The story, as can be seen, devolves into something absolutely ludicrous and ridiculous and completely negates any of the fright that one could feel when faced with a Xenomoprh, because it’s not actually a scary thing - sure, if one has no weapon at hand, but knowing that there are weapons in this world that appear to be very basic, but are capable of destroying so many of the aliens with such ease, it… It takes a lot out of the sails.
Some gravity shenanigans, the pregnant girl injects herself with some of the funky serum, and then the pair - Andy and Rain - makes it onto the ship, ready to get out, along with the pregnant girl (Kay, she’s Kay, but come on, she’s just the pregnant girl, she’s not even a character)... Only for Kay to give birth to a funky Alien baby, which, as stated before, is such an unfathomable disappointment that I do not even want to speak of it anymore. Regardless, it kills her (in the most unsettling death in the whole film) then discombobulates Andy and almost kills Rain, but she gets in and kills it.
Then everything kinda ends almost well. Ultimately, the story starts off with a lot of promise, and it attempts to introduce things into the world of Aline, some explanations, some new understanding for certain characters, but, alas, it teeters off and becomes total nonsense. In its pursuit to introduce new monsters and scary situations, it winds up missing the mark. The questions it asks - mostly related to AI - are left asked, but are devalued by the schlock the film devolves into after presenting them. And the truly interesting concept - that of the human baby that gets Xenomorphed? That is completely ignored. It’s just another monster.
So the deal is unfathomably unpleasant. On one hand, it starts off very strong, and it has some very neat moments and concepts, but the second half of it is simply appalling. I did wind up… Well, enjoying it, in a sense, because two of the more likeable characters make it out of the debacle and appear to be headed for paradise, but, at the same time, things are also marred by something else, by this nasty filth of what happens with the rest of the film. Still, I am feeling more generous than not, and i did like the questions and concepts introduced, for they really jiggled the imagination. 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this movie get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I was almost swayed to do so just because of Kay’s death scene, which actively made me uneasy and uncomfortable, and I wound up remembering it randomly a few days after seeing the film. It was so harrowing, somehow giving me the appropriately bad vibes that such a scene ought to give…
However, the fact that Kay’s death was accompanied by the gross underutilization and complete butchery of the concept of a far-more-human xenomorph just sours the whole thing, so no, Alien: Romulus does not get the Legendary Point. 0/1
Conclusion
7/10. Alien: Romulus is a good movie. Maybe even very good, but more on the good side. It is a competent flick, very pleasant to watch, in regards to the visuals and their quality, but then it also might be a problem for fans of the Alien franchise, because of what it does to (or rather with) the iconic Xenomorph. It does callback to the original, it’s got actors doing a good job, and it’s something I would recommend to fans of horror… And maybe fans of sci-fi… But no one else.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining achievement that I proudly display, even if it could have been a lot shinier.