Shot by Shot Reviews of Film and TV

The two hundred ridiculous aspects of Alien Romulus can be encapsulated in this one line of dialogue, declared two-thirds into its runtime – “The elevator won’t work without gravity.” I let out a laugh; it had earned it. Why would an elevator built to function on a space station rely on gravity? By then, the film had no credibility left, and I no longer cared whether anything made sense.

I went into Fede Alvarez’s Alien Romulus, the sixth film in the Alien franchise, with high hopes (the consensus online was very positive) and tempered expectations (from experience). I staggered out of it, my mind whirling. Alien Romulus is not a film; it is a franchise that had wrapped its spidery legs around the head of a concept and infected it with an idea that then burst out of its chest as a premise that went scuttling across the floor to a dark, seedy corner where it metamorphosed into a fully fledged story fit for a video game that, for no apparent reason, went about hunting to be made into a film.

Alien Romulus does not have scenes. It has cut scenes, connected by challenges. It takes every opportunity for a cheap jump scare, so if you want an easy date movie with nothing heavy to discuss afterward, this might be it. If you’re looking for an involving story with interesting characters and suspenseful thrills and scares, this is not it.

The special fx, the cgi, and the acting are all decent, but what is the point of any of that if they are in service of a void where the organs belong? Every single character is designed solely to take their cue to make the next terrible decision in order to keep the story moving.

The climactic stretch plays out like a fever dream, with all the positive and negative connotations that term brings with it. Wonderfully fantastical actions are carried out, all falling neatly into place without following any basis in reality that we, as viewers, can cling to. There is simply no semblance of logic to anything. Like a dream.

The aspects that make dreams so dreamy make the climax of Alien Romulus devoid of all consequence. It is so frustrating! I remember cursing all those rave reviews online that had sent me to see it. Lies! Or, the audience and I are further apart than I feared.

At the end of the day, as an audience member, I deserved better than watching the Alien franchise bleed acid onto itself and melt away into insignificance.