Alien: Romulus (2024) - A Great Nostalgic Ride with Flaws - REVIEW

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Alien Romulus turn out to be a great movie, can't say its a masterpiece but it gets really close to be honest, at least I see it that way and really enjoy it, for best experience at home I would recommend watching it on VR or a big ass TV to get that immersive feel. Romulus is a good addition to the franchise, it revisits the roots of the Alien Universe in the best way possible and it gets back that feeling of the era from the first movies but in today's world. The movie is directed by Fede Alvarez who also directed great movies like Evil Dead (2013) and Don't Breathe (2015) both great movies to watch on their own bracket. Romulus take place 20 years after the original Alien movie which was set in 2122 setting it at 2142, 37 years before Aliens (1986), Romulus is a movie full of tension as I expect it with very dark sci-fi scenes similar to the original movie. I had a lot of anticipation and excitement about this movie, it really came through, I can confidently without a doubt give it a 8/10 in my own rating.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18412256/
• Platform: AppleTV+

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The movie develops around the character of Rain, played by Cailee Spaeny, who is an orphaned young woman forced to work at a mining colony owned by the Weyland Yutani Corporation which has a very dark reputation. Her only friend is Andy, played by David Jonsson, an android of her dad’s who was program by him with only one mission, to ensure her safety at all times, but he is broken badly so everyone makes fun of him and abuse him. They both have a dream of leaving the current life behind and go start a new life on a distant farming planet but it gets very sketchy, their plans get more dangerous once they decide to take an abandoned Weyland Yutani carrier ship, the Romulus & Remus, in a hope to find cryogenic pods that would help them get to their intended destination.

Being an Alien movie, they are not left to wander the ship for long before they come across face huggers and Xenomorphs. As Rain and her friends go through the corridors of Romulus & Remus, the movie does not take up too long to create tension with everyone on board trying to evade becoming aliens meal or get one explode out of your chest. This may sound like a familiar story, but it is told with enough style to keep you interested, yes one would say its always the same story but its about the craft to make it different some how and introduce new characters and put them under different situations under the same overall situation, Aliens and their acid blood.

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The cast of the movie I think did a great job with all type of characters from Andy been the most vulnerable at first even more than Rain to latter on become a bad mf, doing with is best for them based straight up on numbers and possibilities instead of taking decisions based on feelings.

Then we got Bjorn giving everyone such a hard time making a great contrast with Rain and Andy, sadly there were the two other supporting characters like Tyler and Kay who to be honest had almost close to very little to do with the development of the movie, almost irrelevant in my opinion, at least Navarro got her chest blown out very fast by an Alien. Isabela Merced as Kay, does brings empathy to her role even if she does not appear much, even if some characters exist solely to be killed, every major character is interesting in some way or another, ones more than others.

Online on most Movie Rating Websites like IMDB or RottenTomatoes I think fans and critics had a great response to the movie, receiving good reviews from both sides, ratings from 7 to 8.5 out of 10, on IMDB with over 148k votes, which means that viewers willing to accept the changes implemented on this version of the movie as well as references to the old movies within the franchise. Yes as any other movie in the a franchise where the story and topic at hand is always the same, the movie will be criticized on being cliched and containing scenes similar if not the same as the previous version / movies within the franchise, do you have a Harry Potter movie without magic or a Game of Thrones series without sword fight?

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Personally I found Alien: Romulus to be an exciting roller coaster that is be faithful to the original yet not a direct carbon copy, the mood of the movie is perfect for the series as it gives the audience the fear and the suspense which were characteristic for the first movies, the sequence with the acidic blood floating around in zero gravity was original, and I know will get everyone on the edge of their seat during this scene, one wrong move and its game over.

I had certain problems with the third part of the movie, the last battle scene was a tad unrealistic and to be honest too easy to get rid of all the Aliens, if there were flaws this was the mayor one, not everything is pink and rainbow within the movie, killing almost every Alien in a single shot and having the "Offspring" as they call the Human / Alien hybrid was so predictable. Despite these flaws, Romulus is still a good addition to the franchise, don't take it as the movie that is going to revolutionize the franchise but the movie that will open doors so it can keep growing, since Covenant we had nothing and left with a lot of questions and I just hope Romulus can get us into a new direction leading to the architects.

In conclusion, Alien: Romulus is a science fiction horror movie that gives the viewer what is advertised while also adding in new surprises. It is not perfect as I mention before, there are some issues with plot and characters, from some been irrelevant to some scenes be too predictable, but it is fun both for fans of the series and people who have never seen an Alien movie in the past, so even If you want a new take on the old Alien movies this one is worth seeing in the theaters, or as I enjoy the most now days on VR at home.

The movie also touch on some topics as corporate greed and exploitation in the course of the story without making it seem like a social commentary, Fede Alvarez in my opinion did a great job ad keeping his distance and make the movie specific to the topic at hand, ALIENS!!

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