Alien: Romulus

The Alien franchise has spent decades trying to recapture what made the 1979 original so effective. Some entries chased bigger action, others pursued philosophical ambition, and a few tried to do both at once with mixed results. Fede Álvarez’s 2024 entry takes a more direct approach. Set between the events of the first two films, Alien: Romulus strips the formula back to its essentials: a small group of vulnerable people, a hostile environment, and creatures that are very good at killing.

Audience response has been broadly positive, making this one of the better-received entries in the franchise’s long history. Fans of the original film’s horror sensibility have been especially vocal in their appreciation. The conversation isn’t without disagreement, though. Questions about fan service, character depth, and a polarizing third act have fueled ongoing debate about where this entry actually ranks.

Six young colonists from a corporate mining operation board a derelict space station hoping to find cryogenic pods that will let them escape to a better life. What they find instead is a research facility where very dangerous experiments were conducted, and the results of those experiments are still alive.

Practical Horror and the Return to Claustrophobic Terror

Creature work in Alien: Romulus represents some of the strongest practical effects the franchise has seen since the 1980s. Álvarez committed to building real creatures wherever possible, and the difference is visible in every encounter. The xenomorphs feel present in a way that digital-heavy entries in the series struggled to achieve. Facehuggers move with a speed and organic unpredictability that makes them deeply unnerving. The franchise has always lived and died on how convincing its creatures are, and this entry understands that.

Álvarez’s space station setting works as a natural evolution of the franchise’s best environments. Tight corridors, failing systems, and areas of zero gravity create a playground for horror that Álvarez exploits with skill. The zero-gravity acid blood sequence stands out as one of the most inventive setpieces the series has produced, taking an established element of the franchise’s mythology and finding a terrifying new application for it.

Cailee Spaeny carries the film as Rain, a young woman whose survival instincts sharpen as the situation deteriorates. She brings a grounded quality to the role that keeps the audience anchored during the film’s more chaotic sequences. David Jonsson’s performance as Andy, an aging synthetic with shifting loyalties, gives the film its most interesting character dynamic. Andy’s arc touches on themes of programming versus choice that echo the franchise’s long history with artificial beings, and Jonsson navigates the shifts in his character with real precision.

Pacing through the first two acts is tight and controlled. Álvarez knows when to let tension build and when to release it, and the film moves with purpose from its opening setup through a series of escalating encounters. The confined spaces and dwindling resources create a pressure that builds naturally rather than relying on cheap shocks.

The Weight of Franchise History

Fan service is the criticism that comes up most often, and it centers on how heavily the film leans on what came before. Lines of dialogue from earlier films are repurposed, visual compositions echo famous shots, and plot elements are recycled in ways that range from effective homage to distracting repetition. Some fans appreciate the connective tissue, seeing it as a film that honors the franchise’s legacy while telling its own story. Others argue that the callbacks become a crutch, preventing the film from developing its own identity.

One particularly controversial decision involves a digital recreation of a character from the original 1979 film. The technology creates an uncanny valley effect that pulls some viewers out of key scenes, and the decision to include it at all raises questions about whether the film trusts its own story enough to stand without the direct link to the original.

Character development beyond Rain and Andy is thin. The remaining four colonists get enough personality to be distinguishable from one another, but not enough to make their fates carry the emotional weight they should. The film is so focused on momentum and horror mechanics that it doesn’t invest the time needed to make every loss felt.

A third-act creature design splits audience opinion sharply. Without spoiling specifics, the film takes a biological turn that some viewers found intensely horrifying and others found excessive or out of step with the tone established in the first two acts. The practical effects work on this creature is impressive on a technical level, but the creative choice itself remains a point of active debate.

Bridging Alien and Aliens

Setting the film between the first two entries was a smart structural choice. It allows Álvarez to draw from both the horror of Scott’s original and the more action-oriented intensity of Cameron’s sequel without being beholden to either. The corporate exploitation themes that run through the entire franchise get a fresh angle through the lens of young colonists trapped in a system that treats them as expendable labor. Their motivation to escape isn’t abstract. They’re trying to leave a life that’s already killing them slowly, which makes the dangers they encounter on the station feel like an acceleration of something that was already happening.

Romulus also benefits from not needing to answer the big mythological questions that weighed down Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. By keeping its scope focused on survival rather than origin stories, Romulus avoids the trap of promising revelations it can’t deliver.

Should You Watch Alien: Romulus?

If you’ve been waiting for the franchise to return to pure horror, this is the entry you’ve been asking for. Fans of the original Alien who felt the series had drifted too far from its roots will find a film that understands exactly what made that first movie work. The practical effects and claustrophobic setting deliver on the genre’s core promise in ways the franchise hasn’t managed in years.

Skip it if you’re tired of franchise films that rely heavily on nostalgia for earlier entries. The callbacks are frequent enough that they may overshadow the film’s own strengths for viewers who want something truly new. Also skip it if you found the body horror elements of the franchise off-putting in the past, because this one pushes further than most entries do.

The Verdict on Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus is the franchise getting back to doing what it does best: trapping people in a confined space with something that wants to kill them, then ratcheting the tension until it becomes almost unbearable. Fede Álvarez proved he understands the mechanics of this series, and the practical creature work is some of the best the franchise has produced in decades. The heavy reliance on callbacks and a divisive third-act creature keep it from standing fully on its own, and several characters needed more development to make their fates resonate. But as a return to the horror roots that defined the original film, this delivers the goods.