Alien: Romulus (2024) - A Carefree Spin-off!

★★☆☆☆

 

I went to the cinema for the first time in quite a long time to catch ‘Alien: Romulus’, which is set in between ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’, and considered more like a carefree spin-off than any serious prequel or sequel to the series. In case you’re still curious, ‘Alien: Romulus’ offers no answers or links to whatever’s left unsolved in Ridley Scott’s ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Alien: Covenant’ that reminds me of when I last bought a film ticket. 7 years ago! 2017! Time flying is so much scarier and deadlier than any alien I guess!

To me 1979’s ‘Alien’ is an undisputed sci-fi horror classic, unbeatable and incomparable, period. Even James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’, despite well told and choreographed, is still more like a forgettable action showoff than a psychological slow-burn horror that would make one itch to revisit from time to time. And all those sequels and crossovers coming up later are either jokes or trash! Sir Ridley Scott therefore, has made up two prequels to his own ‘Alien’, trying to explain how that Space Jockey and his ship full of alien eggs ended up in LV-426 and stuff. But intentionally or not, the more he tells, the more mystery or mess he leaves for us to clean up on our own, because he’s got no money yet to make one more prequel to further explain!

I did have high expectations for ‘Alien: Romulus’ since the director used to drop my jaw with ‘Don’t Breathe’, a literally breathtaking claustrophobic horror with a sickening plot twist in the end. This alien spin-off is, like I said, rather carefree and head scratching. It’s part ‘Alien’, part ‘Aliens’. The first half looks decently paced and set up, but when it comes to the second, things seem to have gone mindlessly and impatiently bananas. Its time management is such a complete disaster. A trick of plot twist is used in the end, which makes me feel a bit edgy indeed, but still it can’t make up for its speedy run of nonsense making. Plus the so called insane ending has its own flaw, making it less convincing!

‘Alien: Romulus’ is a lousy tribute to ‘Alien’ or ‘Aliens’. Still I hope Ridley Scott, before going to meet his maker, would be able to take over the reins and make one more film to wrap it up by explaining why our maker, the Engineer if you like, wanted to make us in the first place and later to destroy us all. That nonetheless, seems like a long shot since the franchise is now in the hands of money-minded Disney, which, I guess, will be wishing to keep the cash cow alive forever and ever!