Alien: Romulus - Movie Review | SPOILERS

Intro hello everyone welcome back to another video on the channel today we're going to be talking about one of my most anticipated movies of the Year and that is alien ramulus this movie is directed by fed Alvarez starring Kaylee spany David Johnson Archer Rau and Isabella mered and I was extremely excited for this movie because I am a massive fan of the alien franchise and yeah sure there's been ups and downs I think that the peak of the franchise was definitely with alien and Aliens but honestly I think there's a lot of Merit to a lot of the that we've had since then obviously Alien 3 is extremely divisive amongst fans but honestly there's a lot in that movie that makes it a little bit underrated for me although I think there are several missteps in that film at large also Alien Resurrection well that one I can't really defend that one is kind of a dumpster fire from the very beginning but it's also kind of fun to watch with a group of friends just to kind of laugh and make fun of it in it's so bad it's good type of way and then you have really Scots prequels which are fill with so many incredibly interesting and intriguing ideas and themes and you know just deeper meanings that add so much lore to the alien universe that is very much appreciated to me as a fan of those movies as well but you know we've been waiting for for the alien franchise to go back to its roots with a horror film and that is exactly what alien ramulus tries to do it tries to bridge the gap between alien and aliens in a really fun and interesting way and it's directed by fedy Alvarez who's a very intense and almost cynical filmmaker when it comes to his horror movies and so this was a very interesting take in this alien universe that I very much loved but what I really loved about this movie is the fact that this movie yeah sure it plays it safe in a lot of ways and I was kind of expecting this movie to play it safe after you know the mix reception from the previous Alien films but honestly the last 15 minutes or so of this movie takes a wild swing that I really appreciate and so I cannot wait to get into all these spoilers for this movie so if you have not had a chance to watch alien rhy theight in theaters go check it out and let's just jump right into this thing so first off I want to Alien Franchise References talk about how this film is very much a love letter to the alien franchise at large not just for the first two films because yes this movie does take place in between alien and Aliens but there's a lot of reference to Alien 3 and Prometheus and Covenant and even Alien Resurrection yes even that dumpster fire that I just mentioned a second ago this movie has a loving almost tribute to that movie in a very weird and strange way and so yes this movie does kind of feel like alien soup and I've heard some people complain about that that this movie has you know nothing original about it or that it feels very derivative of all these other things but honestly I think with a very talented director like fed Alvarez at the helm of this film who adds an intensity that only he can bring to a film like this I think it worked by the ending so let's just go down the list and see how this film you know pays tribute to every single alien film that has come in the past including the 1979 original rley Scott film and this movie opens up immediately with the fact that there is a ship going out to explore the wreckage of the Nostromo to try to find any sort of remnants of you know the creature that was killed at the ending of that film or at least we thought was killed at the ending of that film and we know that this alien creature is very resilient you know it's not going to be easily killed with lack of oxygen and lack of food and I guess in my head I see that this alien creature formed you know this like crystallized you know exoskeleton around it to keep it alive in space and that's why they find it in some sort of meteorite that they pull into their ship and they cut it open and now they have access to the creature that the company has been trying to get access to for you know hundreds of years ever since whan wanted to find some sort of cure for himself in Prometheus and so when our main characters in this film you know discover the ship floating above their colony planet that they deci to go into it to try to you know steal their you know cryos sleep pods so they can escape this planet and go to a new place well you know exactly what happened to the ship because they they you know went around they got this alien they did experiments on it and of course things went wrong and killed everybody on board of this ship and so that's really the main reference this movie makes to that original 1979 film along with having Ian Hol rise's role as not Ash this time around but as another Android rook in this film which I think a lot of people have been you know mostly negatively referencing this character in this film and his presence here at all because yes iol passed away back in 2020 and now you're you know doing that you know Tarkin Rogue one type situation with this character in this film and I tend to agree with the complaints here I don't think that CG looks particularly great with this character but I guess in world with the story it does make sense obviously we have a large history of the Alien films having different synthetic characters that are played by the same actor obviously you had David and Walter in Prometheus and alien Covenant and how you know it's the same actor playing these two different models of the same you know synthetic Android and you had you know obviously the character Bishop from Aliens reprise his role in Al Alien 3 and so you've had a long history of these Alien films using the same actor to play different models of different variants of you know synthetics in this world and so it makes sense that they'd bring in home back in this world I just don't think the CGI looked particularly that great in this movie and it just it was just right smack dab in the middle of that uncanny valley that just made you have this disconnect every time they cut back to this character and I think the bigger problem is the fact that this character plays a pretty massive role in this film and even if it just had that you know original scene where they go up to that synthetic and they take the little chip from it and you see that it is the Ian home model you're like oh that's kind of cool but then you have the Andy character play that sort of evil synthetic like he does in this film you know without the constant you know you know man on his shoulder kind of telling him what to do with the whole Ash thing I I think you could have done without it very easily I didn't need the line where he said that uh you know I can't tell you about your chances but you do have my sympathies it felt like a very on theose reference to that original alien film but again I think you can also brush it off as a thing where you know if you programmed the synthetic and you have like this you know generic type of company speak where you say oh you know this you know this Android was created by the company to say these things to you know put these humans at ease in a very disconnected and very corporate manner that line could be kind of brushed off to be that sort of explanation but again I do think that some of this role just felt a little bit unnecessary but I do think that the majority of things that this movie takes from the original alien film does work at large like I said the tone and atmosphere it takes from Alien and that horror vibe that that movie set up perfectly blended into this film's first act before you got into the second act which you know got into aliens territory with the more action oriented type of this film and you even have a scene where you have characters stuck in a room full of face huggers that is very reminiscent of the scene from Aliens but again it has that intensity that visceral quality that's you know fedy Alvarez is going to bring to his films and so yeah sure you're getting into the action oriented side of aliens now into this film but again in this placement of the timeline it makes sense to kind of bridge the gap between the horror elements of alien to the action elements of aliens and a film that takes place in between those two films I thought it worked really well you even get a visual reference to Alien 3 in the ionic shot of that film with you know Ripley going face to face with a xenomorph in that film when you have you know Kayley Spain's character reain in this film going face to face with the xenomorph in a very similar shot in this film I love that this movie is paying tribute to you know David Fincher's first film which I know he disowns that film but again I think that movie has a lot of Merit to it if you kind of strip away the the elements that people dislike about that movie and just look at it as a standalone film as itself it does work pretty well especially when you watch the assembly cut of that movie I think a lot of that film does work so I'm glad that this movie paid tribute to that one as well along with alien resurrection with the entire third Act of this film which I thought was just crazy but before we get into that I do want to talk about how the movie first references Prometheus and Covenant and honestly I was really hoping that this film would have some reference and some sort of tie in to Prometheus and Covenant because that trilogy was never able to be wrapped up in those films and I'm really glad that the movie went in that direction to have these scientist reverse engineer you know this alien creature to I guess clone other face huggers and to clone all these different elements and to drive the black goo back from those creatures and to create some sort of serum I believe it's it's called like a like a compound Z or something like that in this film and to have that be a source to try to create a new cure that whan was looking for all those years ago I love the fact that they tied into that with these nice little nods and musical nods as well in this film which as a big fan of Prometheus specifically and also of alien covenants I'm really glad that we touched on those ideas and had some visual references and had you know an idea of that you know to transfer through into this film and when Offspring you have this compound and you inject it into one of our characters what are you going to get out of that well you're going to get a hybrid creature that was you know also in Alien Resurrection which the idea of a hybrid in the alien franchise has been around for a very long time and it never worked out for this franchise obviously if you've seen Alien Resurrection you know how Wild and insane that movie is and how ridiculously funny it is I think the design of the hybrid in that movie is questionable from the very start it does not look great whatsoever but it's really fun to laugh at and I think the way the the hybrid in that film dies at the end of the film is completely brutal and I really do love how it all happened at the ending of that film but you know theide of a hybrid was immediately shunned after that film from the alien fans at large and when you know I believe Neil blumm was going to do his alien film it was very much rumored that he was going to get into the idea of uh some sort of you know hybrid between human and Xenomorph and how what that would look and you these different you know creature designs that he created for that possible film and I really wonder if this movie took from that original script that Neil BL Blum Camp had because I don't know it's just something that this franchise has been wanting to do for so long and it just it never panned out for them and I think this is going to be a point in this movie where either going to make or break this film for a lot of people because yeah sure you have the first two acts of this movie and even getting into the third act being a fairly standard alien movie of these characters trying to survive against these face huggers and these Xenomorphs and then you know every single alien film from the very beginning started off with a trend where you think that it's all over you think that the characters are safe before you get a fourth act type of thing where the xenomorph was hiding inside of their ship their entire time and they have to go against it in one last battle where you know the synthetic character usually gets ripped in half or something like that in this last section of the movie that is very much a Trope that these Alien movies has been doing since the very beginning and so to see it here but instead of the xenor hiding on their ship it is you know the pregnant character giving birth to this hybrid Offspring character and the look and design of this thing I thought really did work because again I think that this movie benefits from the fact that really Scott expanded the lore with Prometheus and Covenant because this creature kind of looks like a blend between a human uh an engineer and a xenomorph and I love that blend of these three things it looked extremely disturbing and terrifying and kind of got into the same territory that HR gerer got into with his original designs that just look very uncanny and very uncomfortable and very suggestive and just really disturbing and creepy from the very beginning just looking at this thing and how how nightmarish it looked I think it really did work and I put it in my letter box review I think some people are going to absolutely hate this movie because of how Wild it gets in this third Act of the film but I honestly can't help but appreciate that feda Alvarez went in that direction and he did something truly out there and bizarre at the ending of this film and I think at least for me as an honest member it really did Characters pay off but I do think that this movie was nothing but these references to these previous Alien films I think that it would have you know Fallen flat for a lot of audience members I even heard some people say that it did fall flat because it they do feel like it felt derivative for the large majority of this movie but the thing that kept me really interested in this film are the characters in this film because I think that's Kayley spany in particular as rain and David Johnson as The the synthetic character Andy in this film are fantastic characters some of my favorite characters in this franchise in general and a really great you know new Duo that we can have in this franchise that I hope they bring back for a potential sequel to this film The Ensemble of characters that we get in this film all live on this you know wayand utani mining Colony planet where they're all essentially forced to work a certain amount of hours to be able to you know satisfy their quota by the company to be able to get a fly permit to be able to escape from this planet but because it is the whing County Corporation they're going to set a mandate of all these hours and as soon as our main character gets the hours that she needs to be able to get her fly permits they're going to up those hours because you know oh the quota has now magically changed and now you have to live here for another 6 years until you grow old and die from lung cancer like her parents did and so this is a really terrible situation for this character to be in so you're immediately endeared to her struggles because everybody's worked for some shitty Corporation in their lives to be you know stuck in a situation that they do not want to be stuck in and it just seems like the world keeps on you know pushing them down further into the dirt with absolutely no way of escaping so our characters here are very desperate to be able to escape this plan to be able to see the Sun for this first time because this planet is covered in clouds and Smog and dirt and grime and it's just really a shitty place to live where they haven't ever even seen the Sun and they're dreaming about a sunrise and a Sunset and honestly this setup is very reminiscent of fed Alvarez's other film don't breathe with how you have this band of characters that are desperate to escape the situation that they are in by you know pulling off a heist of Swords to get the materials that they need or the money that they need to be able to escape but they're stopped by this Unstoppable Force that's going to prevent them from achieving their goals and kill them off one at a time it has a very similar vibe to don't breathe and even the cynical nature of the kills in this movie are very similar to that of the Evil Dead remake and I think honestly the you know brutality The Kills in this movie uh work a little bit better in this franchise than it does for evil dead because I think that Sam ramy's original trilogy has a lot of Camp to it and I just feel like his Evil Dead remake as great as it is just kind of loses the fun aspect of that movie and feels a little bit too cynical but I think that cynicism feels a little bit more at home with this film because yeah they're going to have a whole bunch of other characters besides our main 2 here that are going to be killed off in gleefully gory ways in this film that's you know just they're here definitely as to I guess up the body count but even these characters have some Merit to them as well well you have the brother sister Duo of Tyler and Kate in this movie Tyler is an exlo interest of our main character rain you can see that they have some history between them that is kind of hinted at through the majority of this film and Kay is a very good friend of Reigns and she uh you know she's pregnant in this film and I guess it's kind of hinted at that maybe the father of her baby is the other guy in this movie the uh I think his name is bejor I don't know because he's also in a relationship with the other character in this film Navaro and so I don't really know maybe that's just me making things up but you never really know when it comes to situations like this in this small friend group but K is a character that is pregnant in this film so immediately in dear to her because you kind of think that she's going to be safe because she is a pregnant woman in this film and that'd be really brutal if this movie decided to kill this character in a very gruesome and brutal and disgusting way but obviously you need to have somebody give birth to The Offspring in this movie and so well there goes there goes Isel merced's character but even the Bjorn character has a lot more of an integral role in this film that I initially thought on First Watch because you know this character is the bully of the group he's the jerk of the group which every single movie like this needs to have a character that's going to poke The Hornet's Nest and you know this character is really interesting to me because yes he's there mainly to add to the body count of this film to you know poke the hornest nest and to bully Andy's character because he is a synthetic but he has a really interesting line in this movie where he talks about how his mom was killed you know in a situation where a synthetic had to choose between you know the trolley problem it choose between saving 10 people or three people that this you know synthetic character is closer to and obviously synthetic character chose to save the large majority of the people because that is more logical to the standpoint of something that is created that's something is programmed by the company and so you have the Andy character who is basically on the opposite end of the spectrum where he was programmed by rain's father to have one primary directive and that primary directive is to do things in the best interest of rain to protect rain to you know Comfort hert throughout all the hardships that she may have in her life after her parents passed away and so when you need to up this character's credentials and able to get them out of the situation they are in when they're stuck in the room full of the face huggers they input this one chip into the character and he becomes very different his you know problem moving around and the glitches that he had go away he becomes much more intelligent and he becomes much more of that synthetic type character that you are afraid of in these Alien films that are you know very much programmed to be you doing things for the company's sake and nobody else's sake now you're dealing with a character that is kind of betraying our group betraying rain and you know saying that oh the Navaro character once she gots you know the face Huger stuck on her and has the alien inside of her he's immediately like no we need to abandon her we need to leave her behind or when you know he's shutting the door and the characters are running and trying to get into safety you know he pushes the button so early that it almost traps another character outside of it then almost leaves somebody behind there's also a really great jab that this character has towards you know rain's character where saying oh yeah you know what would make somebody you want to leave somebody behind even though their entire goal in this film is to go to this one planet that is outside of the Wayan utani I guess grasp on this universe and you know his character the synthetic character wouldn't be allowed to live there and so yeah she was even planning to leave him behind and so there's a lot of great dynamics that this little jab that the bejor character has towards this character from the very beginning that kind of sets up this character's Arc of you know going from the comforting person for rain to the antagonist of this film for a little while before he finally gives in and lets rain take the chip out of him and a very emotional scene between these two characters I thought that was a great moment to show this characters Aram to show the terrifying side of the synthetics in this universe and also the more comforting side of the synthetics Deaths in terms of the caring about other characters in this film Navaro I didn't really care too much about her she was just the one that we knew from the trailer was going to die from the chess burer scene which was absolutely Brutal by the way I love how that entire sequence is shot and cut together with you know the ship kind of going and flying off to the side and how intense that entire sequence was like I said bjor was there just to die in a very brutal way but his death was also very brutal and also added some more lore to the world of alien because you know in that original film when the chest bur scene happens the little alien kind of scurries off and the next time you see it it's you know already the giant you know zomorph that we know and fear from that film in this movie you get to see that middle process where it conun itself into this really disgusting looking thing and you had the bejor character go up to and try to shock it with his taser and obviously things go bad and his tail whips out and the acid blood drips on him and he dies from all that that scene was also very brutal and also adds a lot more lore to see that process of it being birthed from this cocoon that it created for itself a lot of great and brutal stuff here the uh the Tyler character I guess you really only care about Tyler because of his relationship with rain and because rain cares about him so much then through her you decide to care about him for a decent amount of this movie he does die in a very brutal way also with the the xenomorph sneaking up behind him and just stabbing him with his tail and you know lifting him up and then having the face like the little mouth thing inside of the xenomorph mouth kind of slam into his face all that stuff was really bloody and gory and great when it comes to that trademarked you know fety Alvarez Gore and just brutality that he treats his characters with especially in the Evil Dead movies you just got to feel bad for Isabelle merced's character in this film because she is treated horribly throughout the majority of this movie because you find out at the beginning that she is pregnant and you think that she's going to be safe but of course she's not going to be safe she's going to watch the Navaro character have the chest bur scene happened right in front of her eyes and you know she's been on the ship this the entire time so she very much has no idea what in the world is going on to see her reaction of this scene just through her eyes was it just add a lot more intensity to that scene but then even after that she's stuck in the room and and you know Andy you know having this new chip in him won't open the door because the xenomorph is behind her and the xenomorph is waiting for them to open the door and it's going to endanger the rest of the group and so she's stuck in this room and she gets stabbed from behind and pulled away and you think that maybe she died in that scene but no she's not going to be dead yet she's going to be stuck on the wall and the characters are going to have to cut her down and try to you know get her to the ship and get her into the elevator and you know after everybody is dead it's basically just rain and her going up this Elevator Shaft and and Rain decides to go back for Andy because obviously she can't leave him behind in the way that she was originally planning on doing you know she leavs her on her own and of course you know this character being in as much pain as she's in she's going to take that vial that's you know compound Z that was created by in this lab by all these scientists in this movie she's going to take that compound and of course you know it's going to birth the Offspring in this movie in a really disgusting and just gross and brutal way and then no she's not dead even after that she's still alive and so how does fety Alvarez decide to kill this character while he's going to have this Offspring character which again looks absolutely terrifying in this film go up and just essentially breastfeed on her which is really disgusting all that stuff was really gross and she gets killed kind of offscreen by this character just kind of feeding off of her it's really brutal I think they treated this character so incredibly just cruel in this film which God like poor Isabelle mer said I honestly am a big fan of her and I cannot wait to see her in The Last of Us Part Two as Dena I'm really excited for that and obviously she's going to be in the Superman movie as Haw girl so she has a great career ahead of her just this film man she really went through it but really what makes this film works even more so than all those you know fun references that has to all these other films is the characters at large here because yeah sure a good majority of them are here just to die but you know those deaths are very brutal and entertaining to watch and the main Duo of Andy and rain is really entertaining to watch that the majority of this film and rain is a badass in this I love Kaye spany and you know her using the gun to shoot out all these Xenomorphs and the zero gravity sequence which you talk about my favorite sequence of the entire movie there there's a couple sequences that I really loved there was of course the scene where they had to be quiet they raised the temperature in the room to be able to kind of sneak through the room filled with all the face huggers really intense sequence I love that sequence there also the entire zero gravity sequence when they set up the idea of The Purge system with the zero gravity going on and off at the beginning of the movie I knew it was going to come into play by the end of it and the fact that they were kind of floating through all the I guess the the floating acid blood from shooting all the Xenomorphs that was a really really intense sequence I really did love the visceral you know direction that this director had when it came to the sequences in this movie honestly all that stuff was great the elevator sequence is great the Callback to Alien 3 with that one shot was really intense and great and even you know uh Andy you know jumping down onto the xenomorph and you know shooting it to death and saying get away from her you at the end of this movie it got a you know massive cheer by the audience from this film and when it comes to my negatives for this Nitpicks movie honestly I don't really have a lot honestly I think this movie has a lot of plot conveniences that I think some people can point at I think the biggest one at least for me was when the chess burer scene was happening and it's all in the ship and it's kind of floating next to you know the main ramula station and you know uh navara's foot kind of hits the gear and the ship starts flying to the left and eventually keeps on you know wrapping around the ship and goes back into the ship inside of this one chamber that's extremely convenient for it to to just not have just floated off into space and into the rings that was you know surrounding the planet that they were you know trying to escape from I think it's extremely convenient that it landed right back there also the Elevator Shaft leading back directly to their ship was also a little bit of a convenience but honestly I I don't mind those sort of things because I think that the visceral action and the intensity and these horror sequences were good enough for me to really not care too much about that uh in terms of other negatives again I do think the Ian Holm thing is very uncanny and again a little nitpicky stuff like that is throughout this movie but quite frankly I really love the ride that this movie brought me on it really did feel very energetic and very entertaining and again that last Act was such a wild swing from this movie that I couldn't help but appreciate how crazy it was and I left this movie being really surprised by this alien movie yes it is a lot of things that you expect it to be but I think it does go a step further with the characters and with that third act that make this movie a little more special than some of the alien movies in the past and so honestly I'm very curious to Your Thoughts? hear your thoughts on alien ramulus were you on board with the last Act of this movie or did you kind of lose you honestly I feel like this movie could easily lose the audience because of how Wild that third Act is especially if you are a alien purist and you don't want or you don't like the idea of any sort of human xenomorph hybrid did it work for you did not work for you comment down in the comment section down below what your thoughts are of the ending of this movie along with the movie at large what do you guys think of alien Romulus and of course if you did enjoy this review make sure leave a like And subscribe to channel see more reviews just like this one I've had a lot of great horror movies in most recent memory of course we had cuckoo last week and we had you know odity which is very you know interesting strange horror movie we also had you know long legs and trap and a whole bunch of other things on the channel here so if you want to see more reviews just like this one you can go check out those videos as well but like I said comment down below leave a like subscribe to channel if you did enjoy this review and I hope to see you all in my next one [Music]