Alien Romulus

Thank the space gods!

Good news, it was better than Ressurection. It is undoubtedly kind of a mish mash of all previous Alien movies, has that haunted house style buildup of the first, a bit of action from Aliens, the desperate hunt from Alien 3, there's even a bit of Ressurection in there but done so friggin' much better it's like not even a laughing matter. Set after the destruction of the Nostromo from the original Alien we follow a young lady named Rain and her synthetic friend Andy as they accompany a group of salvagers to an oribiting space station to secure cryopods for the deep space journey to another world. The movie take it's time setting everything up and starts to build the characters before we even step foot on the Romulus station, and it's not quite the same as that bleak buildup in Aliens where you know shit went down, it's business as usual until one action dominoes the gates of hell opening. It's damn near 2 hours with credits but we get a solid introduction and grasp on the crew and their personalities which I appreciate. It's far too easy to make meat for the grinder instead of writing real characters but that's not found here. Rain and Andy are a quite sweet duo lead and I certainly wanted them to make it out, but even the salvage crew for the most part are likeable average day people who get dragged into this nightmare which I like. The visuals are honestly better than Covenant by a country mile, effortlessly constructing that analogue tech and the claustrophobic interiors with all the modern toys of filmmaking so pure gold across the board in that department. They make the facehuggers and xenomorphs scary again, maybe even more than the original, and the design work is something to be admired. Alien bodysuits, animatronic facehuggers, mmm it's a bit special. There really only was one aspect I didn't like and not even really because it's bad it's just something I strongly disagreed with, but you'll know it when you see it. And yes you absolutely should see it over the weekend, it's just right for Alien fans and I think they'll get a good deal out of it. Hell even if this was your first foray into that universe, and judged the film purely on it's own merits I feel you would still dig it. I loved it and am so happy to report we are back baby! 3.5 stars, 8/10, and grab one of those rad popcorn buckets if you get the chance!