Alien: Romulus Review (SPOILERS) - Unfortunately a dissapointment...

As I wrote in a neighboring post, I would give the movie 7/10 points. There were many good moments and ideas. Unfortunately, there were an incredible number of little things and also a few major aspects that severely limited the quality of the movie.

Honestly I don't know exactly what my expectations were: Would I want to see a further Alien movie or would I want to see the ideas from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant further explored? In the end, as it turned out, you don't get either.

On the whole, it felt more like a fan service than an original movie. The main thing was to cram as many eastereggs and references to the other Alien films into Alien: Romulus as possible; meaningful story - whatever. Furthermore, the pace of the movie was just way too fast. They just tried to cram too much nostalgia into the movie, instead of focussing on suspension and atmosphere.

Here are a few things that were absolutely disastrous.

- At the beginning of the movie you find Big Chap spun up between the wreckage of the Nostromo - the Nostromo ended up in a thermonuclear explosion, so there's certainly no wreckage flying close together. By the way, they didn't have to search for Big Chap, they flew straight there and collected him. How convenient. Fan service for the first movie, of course.

- They knew Big Chap was floating around out there. They could only have taken that from Ripley's radio message (otherwise they would have had to assume that he died in the explosion)! So they must have picked up Ripley's radio message and triangulated their position - why didn't they pick her up?

- What do they need the Big Chap for? Why not just collect a few eggs from LV 426? By the way, if you think you'll see Big Chap again in the course of the movie, I have to disappoint you. You only see his corpse later on, with the casual comment that he was shot by security *facepalm*

- Where does the space station come from and why is it up there? When they discover it, Tyler comments tersely: “I don't know, it was probably dragged here”. So why is it in a collision orbit with the planet's rings then? Who cares. The station is of course a fan service for Alien: Isolation.

- Why is the movie actually called “Alien: Romulus”? Sure, one half of the station is called “Romulus” (and the other “Remus”) - but what's that supposed to tell me?

- What exactly happened to the station crew? How exactly did Big Chap break out? Where did they get all the facehuggers from? Did they take them from him? Before he “woke up”? Why did they offscreen him and the havoc he wreaked???!!?!? I feel like this should have been in the movie for christs sake!!!

- Tyler has a motion/heat sensor in his hand when they enter the space station. Do you think he'll use that again? Of course not, lol. Fan service for movie 1 and 2.

- The CGI-generated Ash is the biggest disaster in the movie. As far as I'm concerned they could have shown his “corpse” briefly to provide another bit of fan service. But the way they then sit his upper half down and then he talks to them via video phone for the rest of the movie is absolutely ridiculous. Why don't they communicate with MU/TH/UR instead? The omnipresent, omniscient mother with her absolutely cold, emotionless voice would have been much creepier. Also: If you are doing fan service en mass, then why don't include some hints about the company searching for a specific David-Unit, which they received a message from.

- Big Chap's corpse hangs from the ceiling in the cables. What a disappointment that he didn't make an appearance in the movie. It's like the off-screen death of Shaw in Alien: Covenant. By the way, none of the characters seem shocked or particularly surprised that there's an alien monster hanging from the ceiling. That's just the way it is and further on in the text (just like in Alien: Covenant when they enter the Engineer town: Humanoid aliens, killed in a holocaust? Who cares, lol).

- The scene, where Bjorn tries to electrocute the Alien in the cocoon - why the f*** does he stand 1 m in front oft he cocoon, when there's a tailspike coming out oft he cocoon; like the rabbit in front of the snake he stands there, waiting to be stabbed.

- They have also managed to incorporate the black liquid from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant - and the Prometheus theme is even briefly played. However, Ash 2.0 only serves up a short, half-written story at such a pace that you can barely process what's been said and let it sink in. Of course, they swallow the story immediately and move on. The pace of the movie was simply far too fast.

- Before they leave however, of course, both of them are quickly handed two pulse guns (fan service for part 2). But you're not allowed to shoot, because decompression and stuff.

- Why does the alien in Navarro mature within 5 minutes when it usually took 1-2 days in the first four movies?????!!?!??

- What a coincidence that their ship doesn't drift into space during Navarro's agony, but spins once around the station and flies right into the - randomly opened - hangar of the station.

- In the hallway where they have to S N E A K  S I L E N T L Y past the facehuggers - WHY IS TYLER STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HALLWAY TO GET ON HIS F***ING HEADSET AND TALK TO KAY?!???!?????! WHY DIDN'T HE MUTE IT????!?!?!?!

- The Big Chap in the first movie or the queen in the second movie were at least as intelligent as a human and behaved accordingly. The aliens and facehuggers in Alien: Romulus are all borderline stupid and can all be killed far too easily. The Alien is meant to be menacing, not to be cannon fodder.

- In the elevator shaft when Rain is picked up by the alien that was tasered by Bjorn earlier: WHY ARE THERE FLASHES COMING FROM THE ALIEN'S HEAD????!?!?!???! Although why did the filmcrew "mark" this alien with the scar, so the viewers would recognize it - and then don't use it in the movie except this one scene?

- They could have saved the cheap lines, like when Andy killed the last alien (“Leave her alone you bitch”) - absolutely cringe. Fan service for the second movie.

- I even found the human-alien-engineer hybrid at the end quite funny - but obviously we have fan service here too for Prometheus, Alien: Covenant and Alien: Resurrection. If you like this Hybrid or not, it felt to me like this was the only thing that this movie positively added to the lore! Interesting concept, maybe you might get an Engineer-Human-Hybrid, if done right? Or maybe Engineers like the ones on LV 223? That put aside: Why the hell does he grow from the size of a baby to the size of an engineer within 5 minutes?????!!!?!?!

- Luckily they have a flamethrower on board their ship just before the end (fan service to parts 1 and 2). The whole fight against the hybrid was a fan service for Alien, Alien 2 and Alien: Covenant - blast it out the airlock!

- Why does the autopilot of their spaceship suddenly fail towards the end (by the way, it seems to come back on by itself just before the collision with the rings). This “threat” from the collision with the rings wouldn't have been necessary at all with the hybrid on board - it was threat enough.

Those were just a few things I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure that wasn't even half of the things that bothered me. I just don't get it - can't they produce good/meaningful/logical movies these days or do they not want to? Why can't they get it together? The potential, the cast, the budget, the setting, the universe - it was all there! But the script was as full of holes as a Swiss cheese. It's enough to make you cry.