The Alien franchise is returning to theatres across the world with Alien: Romulus, the latest from writer/director Fede Álvarez. I’ve enjoyed some of Álvarez’s previous movies, including the remake of Evil Dead (2013) and Don’t Breathe (2016). The cast of this film includes Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, and Archie Renaux, among others. 

The Alien franchise is a weird one. It began with two classics in Alien & Aliens, but then it really goes downhill from there. Alien 3 was famously plagued with a troubled production and significant studio interference. After that, audiences were subjected to Alien: Resurrection and two Alien vs Predator movies, none of which I even enjoyed as a kid. 

Ridley Scott, the director of the first Alien movie returned to the franchise with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, which are prequels to his original film. I haven’t seen either movie in a while, but I remember feeling pretty middling on them overall. 

This movie takes place between Alien and Aliens and the synopsis is very simple and spoiler-free: 

“While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.”

I wanted to lay out the history of the franchise because if you count the AvP movies, then the Alien franchise includes nine different films and hasn’t delivered anything a fraction as good as its first two entries. 

A lot of the marketing and buzz around Alien: Romulus promised a return to the franchise’s roots. So does Alien: Romulus recapture the franchise’s glory, or should we jettison this one into space? 

My Spoiler-Free Thoughts

Oh boy. I have a LOT to say about this movie and I will eventually dig into spoilers, which you can read after the verdict section of this review.

First off, I really dug this movie as it started. The sets and the props looked amazing. They managed to teleport me back to the first Alien movie with the retro futuristic tech that those early movies are really known for. I also loved the sequences in open space too. I was blown away by just how beautiful it all looked and how it all sounded. The tagline for the first Alien was “In Space No One Can Hear You Scream” and I loved the use of silence in these moments. That, combined with some stunning visuals really blew my socks off. I saw this at a smaller Cineplex theatre, but I would’ve loved to see the movie in IMAX for those shots alone. 

I also liked the initial setup as well. The characters are in a location and situation that’s much different than other Alien movies. The main cast are also new to the franchise and are living in a less than ideal situation working for the infamous big bad Weyland-Yutani Corporation. 

The movie doesn’t take much time to flesh out most of the characters, but I would say only David Jonsson as Andy did anything for me anyway (I will talk more about his role in the spoiler section). Cailee Spaeny as Rain was good as the film’s lead, but I think the character just didn’t have much on the page that really made me invested. Rain has a reluctance to participate in the mission, but she handles everything thrust on her as if it was natural to her and it honestly made me forget about that aspect of her character as the movie progressed. 

This is where things took a sharp turn for me though. As the Alien part of the movie really begins, the movie starts to fall apart. First of all, we have yet another use of AI and CGI to recreate a dead actor, which I just am never going to be okay with (more on that in the spoiler section too). Aside from being pretty morally reprehensible, it also just looks terrible a lot of the time. Some moments it’s not so bad, but then there are some others where it just looks like they didn’t bother to finish working on it. The character is also present for a good chunk of the movie too and every single time they appeared I was just more and more disappointed with their inclusion. 

This also though was the first sign to me of just what kind of movie this really was. When I logged this movie on Letterboxd, I wrote, “The Force Awakens of the Alien franchise (derogatory)” and I think that says it all. This movie is somehow derivative of basically all the movies that came before it. I will discuss this in more detail in the spoiler section, but basically this movie is just a generic Disney franchise film set in the Alien universe. It links to previous movies for no real narrative reason, it has cheap callbacks that made me audibly groan twice during the movie, and it does nothing compelling, new, or interesting. 

I was perplexed thinking about just who this movie was for and why it exists, but it’s because I forgot for a moment that this was now a Disney owned IP. Disney acquired the Alien franchise when it acquired 20th Century Fox. So naturally, Disney had to make its generic and derivative rehash of a beloved IP because that’s all they seem to bother doing now. 

For all of the faults in the Alien franchise, and there are plenty, this movie felt the most soulless of all of them. I will elaborate more in the spoiler section after the verdict. 

Verdict

If you’re all aboard the Disney train and you love watching movies that are simply trying to cash in on your affinity for older movies that you love, you might be happy with what Alien: Romulus has to offer. Despite a very solid acting performance and some beautiful visuals, this movie falls apart when it uses the digital recreation of a dead actor, adds ham-fisted lines recycled from better movies, and does absolutely nothing new or interesting.

I saw this movie with my friend Connor, who has never seen any of the Alien movies (don’t worry, I will fix that) and he didn’t like this either. At best, it’s an inferior version of previous movies in the franchise, so you’re better off putting on Alien or Aliens and experiencing a movie that was created to be more than just the latest cash grab for the Disney corporation. 

SPOILERS AHEAD

With all that out of the way, I will get into spoilers here for the movie. If you don’t want to know anything else, this is your final warning to stop reading!

So to get the good part out of the way, I mentioned the performance of David Jonsson as Andy as being the standout for me. The one thing they always seem to nail in the Alien franchise is the android characters, and that’s true here with Andy. It’s a mild spoiler, sure, but the movie reveals this in an interesting way after Andy is assaulted and a closeup shot of his face shows the iconic white blood slowly dripping down his face. Jonsson plays the two sides of Andy perfectly. Andy starts as the meek protector of Rain, full of very lame dad jokes, and becomes a more sophisticated Weyland-Yutani stooge that seeks to accomplish the corporation’s ultimate mission. 

Unfortunately though, the movie can’t resist tainting this great character and performance. Ultimately the original Andy is restored and helps save Rain from certain death. As he attacks a xenomorph, he delivers the iconic line from Aliens “Get away from her you bitch!” and it was so forced and it didn’t fit this character at all. I audibly scoffed at the line, that somehow transcended being just derivative and cheesy, and felt like a fourth wall break. If they actually showed a Disney executive appear on screen to tell Jonsson to “just try saying the line”, it would’ve felt just as out of place as what is in the movie. 

I think that was the exact moment when the spell the move cast over me was lifted and I realized that this wasn’t just a middling Alien movie, but it was something much worse. 

I also mentioned that this movie is derivative of the others that came before and it’s almost impressive how much it does pull from the other movies. Like The Force Awakens though, it does absolutely nothing different or play with that format or your expectations. The movie is almost beat for beat in line with the first one, even with the extended final act sequence (which yes, ends with them jettisoning the last Alien into space). It’s got a weird human/xenomorph hybrid like Alien: Resurrection, the black goo from Prometheus and Alien Covenant, and the mining colony at the start of the movie had similar vibes to the prison planet from Alien 3. 

Even when the movie does try something new, including a zero-gravity sequence where Rain shoots a bunch of xenomorphs and then has to try and navigate through their floating acidic blood without getting touched, they just drop the ball. As it was coming together, I was getting excited about the sequence and then they just did nothing with it. There’s a single moment when Rain has a close call and then the movie cuts away and Rain and Andy have gotten through, seemingly without issue, off-screen. 

Without a doubt, the most troubling aspect of the movie is the use of AI and CGI to digitally resurrect the late Ian Holm. Holm, who brilliantly portrayed the android Ash in the original Alien, is posthumously brought back as Rook, a different model of the same android, in Alien: Romulus.

The film teases this reveal by initially showing only a battered android’s body, shrouded in shadows. I immediately became concerned about this reveal and that concern grew as they deliberately delayed the moment. When the reveal finally came, it confirmed my worst fears. While I understand that Holm’s family was consulted and reportedly eager for his inclusion, which is a small comfort, I believe the intentions behind this decision matter just as much. Director Fede Álvarez openly admitted to using AI to create this likeness, but emphasized that they weren’t trying to replicate Holm’s acting talent—just his appearance.

He said, “We were not trying to do what can’t be done, which is to reproduce that person’s talent as an actor, because this is another character. The only thing they have in common is the likeness.” 

To me, this choice feels even more exploitative. They didn’t even bring back the original character; they simply wanted to capitalize on his likeness. Any other actor could have portrayed a new android variant, but instead, they chose to indulge in a hollow form of nostalgia and used a dead man’s likeness to do it. This is symptomatic of the pop-cinema formula that Disney has mastered: feeding audiences familiar faces and recycled moments, expecting applause for mere recognition. If just seeing digital Ian Holm wasn’t enough though, they also had it recycle lines from the original film for people to cheer about too. 

If it isn’t already clear, I despise this trend, especially when you consider it’s most often employed by Disney, the largest, most soulless studio in existence today. This isn’t about honoring actors or preserving their memory—it’s about cheap thrills, designed to manipulate an audience trained to cheer for the past rather than embrace something new.

As Disney and other major studios churn out increasingly uninspired content, I can only hope audiences begin to see that films like this pale in comparison to the ones that made us fall in love with cinema in the first place. 

Theatrical cinema may be in a dark place, but for those of us who still believe, there’s light to be found. Stick with us at Screen Love Affair, and together, we’ll discover new films that remind us why we fell in love with cinema—not through cheap nostalgia, but by doing something new, bold, and truly captivating.