'Alien: Romulus' Review: Beautifully designed and very cinematic

I'm a little late to the party with this one, but I can't say I mind that at all. Alien: Romulus had a lot of controversy surrounding its release, one that was focused on our current creativity problem in all industries: artificial intelligence. The film was one of the first big budget titles to use it to generate and animate a former actor's face and dialogue for numerous scenes in the film. That actor had unfortunately passed away and his family had given permission for this development to go forward. But even so, it caused a lot of debates across the Internet over whether it was necessary or even ethical still in the first place, and asked very good questions going forward in the film industry if this would continue to be the norm. Do the dead need to be revived so that big franchise titles can continue milking consumers of their cash? Does this set a new standard within production companies to continue using artificial intelligence in their titles, and to what degree would it then be enough? But surrounding the use of this technology comes a much better question that I feel is rarely considered: should the consumer see the value in something sold to them when it is made with technologies that skip the human creativity entirely? I could go on and on regarding this subject, but I have to admit that seeing it all surrounding the film's release definitely kept me away for a while.

I was curious though. The Alien franchise has been stale for decades. I would say that the only good Alien film is really just the first, with a continuous degradation in its quality from there on. Especially when we get into the concept of crossovers with the Predator franchise. Ridley Scott certainly hasn't been a director of much decency in decades as well, sticking mostly to producer roles as he ages and constantly spouting nonsense to the media that just makes people more tired of him than before. The attempts to expand upon this franchise have been too disappointing, too stale and just reusing the same format over and over. It begs the question of how many more times can this franchise just tell the exact same story? Well, it appears that it can go another time, and that is with Alien: Romulus, directed by the random Fede Álvarez that I'm sure so few had heard of until this title came out. Now, I admit I was expecting to jump into this film and have a ton of negative things to say. I expected this to be a title that tells the same story and has nothing new to offer and would be easy to just rip into. But that isn't what I discovered in the end. Alien: Romulus certainly does rely on its established narrative structure within the franchise. But it does so in a much more entertaining way, taking things to new heights in most directions. Yes, that's it! I'm saying I actually quite enjoyed this film! Especially to speak of the directing and the world building elements, which this franchise has been begging to see more of.

A strength in this Alien title is how it introduces itself: a set of characters stuck on a mining planet for a dystopian mining corporation are tired of the life they lead. Our protagonist, Rain is scheduled to finally leave having fully performed her years of service to the company, to which due to a shortage of workers leads to her time actually being increased upon leave. With the desperation setting in, a group of these younger individuals have finally had enough of the harsh conditions and life they live, deciding to steal a ship that'll take them off the planet and to another where they'll finally live actual lives. In effort to survive the long travel to the their destination, they aim to harvest cryostasis chambers from a nearby abandoned space station which will allow them to rest until arrival. It's to no surprise that it is here that the film starts to follow its usual Alien roots. But that starting set of scenes were really well made, that introduction to the greater universe of the Alien story was much more appreciated. To see the living conditions, the dystopian sides of corporations in the distant future. For once we really got to see something new from the story that focused on the societies that had formed in off-world colonies. I would've loved to have seen more on this. Especially with how much more depth it gives to the level of development humanity has achieved and where it's now at. Now mining and terraforming planets.

But the story needs to press on, and it's here that the usual Alien tropes begin: even down to the character structure. Of course, it wouldn't be an Alien title if the group didn't have their own android with them, one that would inevitably be led to go against them, as is the usual case within this franchise. Where it seems the real threat is hardly the xenomorphs and face-huggers but really the trust humans put into robots. I grew a bit tired of seeing this in the franchise, it felt a bit on-the-nose that they'd start using the androids as a negative. This is somewhat utilised yet again in Romulus, as Andy, the android, has his prime directive overwritten to pursue the interests of the corporation and help them provide a sample back to them. It's all so tiresome! Though this didn't stick around for the entire narrative, and much of the film still shows the attempts at survival from the android and the humans as they're effectively hunted down by clones of the xenomorphs and face-huggers. The abandoned space research centre being the one from the original Alien title. As the story starts off, it feels a little bit of a slog, something you know you've seen before. And I'd say much of the story is like that. But the main appeal here is the art direction! This film is utterly stunning with its set designs and locations. They really pulled things off with the environments.

In terms of cinematography and art direction, the film looks beautiful. I loved the lighting scenarios in various locations, the rustic and vintage look of the technology in the space station mixed with the look of futurism. One thing I've grown to hate in recent science fiction is everything being touchscreens and hologram screens. Whereas Alien: Romulus takes us back to the big old retro buttons and screens. It adds so much more depth to the environments when things have their own form, an actual geometric shape to them. Making these rooms and areas of the ship actually something that these characters have to navigate through for survival. Each room has its own lighting, its own depth and sharp edges and round forms. It made the station feel huge, something truly horrifying that one could be hunted inside while also attempting to not get lost within. The director really pulled this one off well, and I was really surprised at how beautiful the shots looked. So much so, that I found myself browsing the concept art of the film after watching it. Elements of world building also add to this depth of the environment, even down to the guns and how they're introduced.

This is an Alien film that didn't do too much to differ up from the narratives of the rest, but really went out of its way to pursue a big cinematic epic in the process. This would've been an incredible film to watch in the cinema on the big screen with surround sound. And it really shows that this is the type of film made for that specific environment. I think there are aspects in which this could've been better, but it still heavily surprised me. And this is a rare good Alien title.