“Alien: Romulus”: Perfect monster show in space

A two-hour battle against ravenous ones Space parasites: More is for one successful “Alien” film not necessary – especially when the director’s name is Fede Álvarez. After all, he has already taught us to fear several times with “Don’t Breathe” and a bloody “Evil Dead” remake.

Now he continues a legendary film series, but does not provide the final part of a trilogy that began with “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant”. Instead, his film “Alien: Romulus” is a completely independent work, set between the very first “Alien” film and “Aliens: The Return”. The action therefore takes place sometime between the years 2122 and 2179.

A seemingly abandoned space station

The focus here is on a group of young space adventurers – consisting of Rain (Cailee Spaeny), Tyler (Archie Renaux), Kay (Isabela Merced), Bjorn (Spike Fearn), Navarro (Aileen Wu) and the shy android Andy (David Jonsson), in whom Rain sees something like a brother. They have all come across an abandoned space station and can hardly believe their luck: the valuable equipment now belongs to them and it should finally be possible to escape their dreary existence on a mining planet.

But appearances are deceptive: Unfortunately, they are not completely alone in the endless corridors and crew quarters, because they soon come across the first horribly mauled corpse – and above all, there is a gruesome life form called a xenomorph that is looking for new host bodies.

Brilliant script and joy in detail

What awaits us then is Terror cinema in his purest form and will be able to watch how the horror slowly increases. The fact that everything meshes together so precisely and every action the characters take conjures up an even worse situation (and an even more ugly way of dying) is thanks to the brilliant script, because it always offers new, even more crazy variations that you can take from escaping from the aliens . But also on the psychological level Turbulence soon arises when previous allies suddenly become opponents who pursue completely different interests than protecting friends.

The work also refines one Detailed stagingwhich leaves nothing to be desired: As soon as the six-person team's spacecraft takes off on its first flight to cross the planet's wind and storm-swept atmosphere, you immediately know that this film has found the absolutely right director in Álvarez, because with so much Realism also makes you feel really shaken as a viewer.

Alien surprise and an unexpected reunion

The one immediately following Oversupply of alien creatures makes the hearts of film fans beat faster, and anyone who thinks that the xenomorphs can't offer anything new with their well-known regeneration cycle will ultimately be completely disappointed unknown hybrid form surprised. But the biggest surprise awaits us when, thanks to a certain character, there is a direct connection to the original 1979 film.

Cailee Spaeny makes Sigourney Weaver proud

Once could Sigourney Weaver as a pioneer of that tough female characters are considered that cannot be brought down by even the biggest monster and are firing on all cylinders. In the meantime, countless more of these fighters have followed in a wide variety of film genres, but Cailee Spaeny in particular now has to measure herself against her legendary predecessor – which doesn't seem to cause her any problems, because she does her job so well here that she's actually Ellen Ripley Jr. should be called.

“Alien: Romulus” catches that Spirit of the original film therefore perfect and becomes the best part of all previous pre- and sequels by having one young team this series new life (although unfortunately most of them have to breathe out their lives again in the film).

5 out of 5 acidic alien blood drops