The highly anticipated arrival of Fede Alvarez’s ‘Alien: Romulus’ finally happened this weekend, and given the hype of the latest instalment in the iconic sci-fi horror, the film had a lot to live up to when it hit theaters.
‘Alien: Romulus’ certainly delivered at the box office, marking the second biggest openings in the franchise’s history, but would it deliver with audiences?
The film is paced rather well, given a nearly 2 hour run time, and wastes no time diving into things, following Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her adoptive brother Andy (David Jonsson) who is an artificial human that Rain’s father salvaged and programmed to put Rain’s best interest front and center, although Andy is flawed and glitchy.
Rain meets up with some of her friends who discover that there is an abandoned vessel hovering above their dark, chaotic planet. Rain is already disenchanted after fulfilling her work hours in the mining colony Jackson Star only to be told her quota rose significantly as she attempted to sign off and head to the planet Yvaga, where there is sunlight.
Rain’s friends have a different idea – head to the abandoned ship to gather what they need to make the long journey themselves to a new life.
While Rain is hesitant, she decides to join Tyler (Archie Renaux), Bjorn (Spike Fearn), Navarro (Aileen Wu), and the pregnant Kay (Isabela Merced) on the daring journey.
They make contact with and board the abandoned ship, and discover the aftermath of chaos along with some strange experimentations in a lab.
However, their curiosity in what the ship holds is what sets things into motion, bringing to life the alien lifeform that is responsible for the carnage.
While the film has a few flaws, it doesn’t derail a stellar movie that not only lives up to the hype, it delivers more.
Cailee Spaeny is one of the more memorable leads since Sigourney Weaver in the 1979 classic, and David Jonsson shouldn’t be forgotten for his captivating performance.
Easily one of the best of the bunch for 2024, if not the best, especially given the amount of disappointing horror films that have been unable to live up to their hype.
