Alien Romulus is a 2024 Sci-Fi/horror film co-written and directed by Fede Alvarez. It is (as of this writing) the newest entry in the Alien franchise of films, set in the year 2142 between the original 1979 movie Alien (set in 2122) and the 1986 movie Aliens (set in 2179). It stars Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Arche Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu. In it, a group of young colonists living and working on the planet LV-410 steals a hauler with the intent to raid an abandoned space station so they can steal the cryostasis equipment and get to a planet called Yvaga III, which is not controlled by the Weyland-Yutani corporation. Little do they know, the corporation had recovered a cocoon from the wreckage of the Nostromo that contained the xenomorph that killed the crew of the Nostromo, brought it aboard the station, and began reverse engineering the facehuggers. Of course, the station's crew were all killed, and there are Aliens in the "Romulus" module of the station, which the group inadvertently releases when they attempt to steal the cryostasis equipment. Then, it becomes a monster-chase movie similar to the other films in the franchise.
The 4k set is a two-disc set containing a UHD disc and a regular Blu-Ray disc. The A/V quality of the UHD version of the movie is excellent and is reference quality (or near reference quality) for both the audio and video. All the extras are included on the regular Blu-Ray disc. Those include about 11 minutes of deleted scenes, about 35 minutes of behind-the-scenes material, and a conversation between Fede Alvarez and Ridley Scott (who was an executive producer on the film). In total, there are just under an hour of extras. There is no director's commentary track on the film, which would have been nice given how big a fan Alvarez is of the franchise and how many easter eggs he put in the movie to tie it to Alien and Aliens.
Ultimately, the movie is an excellent return to the franchise. It is well-written and acted. It focuses on the franchise's horror/monster movie roots but expands the storyline to give more detail into the Weyland corporation's plans for the creatures. As I said above, Alvarez is a huge fan of the franchise and included many easter eggs and callbacks to the prior movies, especially Alien, including a way to posthumously use Ian Holm's likeness for the Android Rook, which is an identical model to Ash from the original movie, whom the group encounters on the station. It also ties the film to the colony aspect introduced in Aliens, giving a perspective of what it was like for the kids living in those colonies. It also incorporates aspects from the prequel films Prometheus and Alien Covenant. Given the 30+ year gap between the events of Romulus and Aliens, this movie could have multiple sequels down the line. However, even as a standalone film in the franchise, it is absolutely worth watching.
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