When callbacks replace originality 

theres somethin in the wa ur If you enjoyed this video please leave a like! I dont want to deter anyone from enjoying the movie i just wish people watched the whole vid before disliking the vid

Genuinely, I was so thrilled by this movie. The best part was 100% when the Xenomorph said "I'm going to show you my Romulussy!" and did shockingly inappropriate things to our protagonist

Having handsome squidward as the final boss made this movie epic

I think the characters choices in the film were organic and Rain was smart. They didn’t try to make a new Ripley which was something I was nervous about. It’s been said a lot but I do agree it’s the third best alien film. The world building at the beginning too was great. You’re bound to get something the same, it’s an alien movie, but the way they handled it I see no issue that took me out of the experience. I think if you’re familiar with most of the alien media (especially the game) it’s a rewarding watch.

Am I the only one who really enjoyed this movie? I’m glad it went back to its horror roots. I just watched Aliens 1986 and just like before I wasn’t a fan. It lacked the horror. This movie brought the horror back. I really liked it.

At 0:06 in the video he said his answer. He enjoyed the movie. No need to watch anything more. It's all good, it's over, it's Done!!!! The end is near!!!!

The only egregious pieces of nostalgia baiting was the cringe "get away from her you bitch" line and the Rook android, apart from those two things I gotta say this was the best Alien film since Aliens

Alien Romulus was absolutely incredible.

Thank you man. This review hit home what I was missing from the film. I really enjoyed it seeing it in the theaters twice, but I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed because I felt this movie should’ve been more. Solid review as always

i'll be watching this entire video after i see the film myself this weekend, but i just wanted to say i appreciate the videos you make a whole lot. i've seen a lot of people criticize you in the past and say you never make videos about movies you like, but to me it's clear there's a whole lot of passion and care behind what you do. criticizing something and expressing disappointment does not mean the entire project as a whole goes unappreciated or adored in some ways, and you've been able to express that dichotomy perfectly. your latest videos especially have been such a joy to watch and i'm glad the love you have for film has been so apparent in your recent work. keep doing what you're doing!

wouldn’t having two andy’s not make sense since his specific android was designed for the mines???

I actually really enjoyed the movie. Although I have only watched the first movie. I did think the beginning was a tad slow, but it gave the viewer a reason to care about the characters before they died. I think some should've lasted a tad bit longer, but it is what it is. I really love what they did with Andy, his character as a whole was intriguing the entire way through. I also liked the horror throughout, as it kept me kinda waiting for what's gonna happen next. Especially the last part (SPOILERS) with Kay and her baby, my face went from mostly neutral to a legit "WHAT THE FUCK" until the credits rolled. I thought it was a solid movie all the way through, and I'm kinda surprised so many people are so-so about the movie.

Wtf your saying it was great

isolation still reins supreme in my head as the best alien sequel.

I've been watching your videos since like 2018. I got my mom to buy me the pink nostalgia sweatshirt you had out YEARS ago. Your content is still just as addicting man!!! keep it up 😁😁

Not everything has to be a mind blowing masterpiece. I appreciate getting something thrilling and fun in the franchise since there was a chance that this franchise would be 6ft under. All these YT reviewers are trying so hard to be though-provoking that they're not even having fun watching movies anymore.

I love listening to you, Nick!

why can't people just listen to someone else's opinion disliking a video without even watching it because you personally enjoy the movie is so ridiculous, art is subjective

I dont really watch horror films but ive seen mostly good reviews. But damn nick didnt fw it like that, thats tough

Nah man, that character is literally a plot character from the extended universe from Alien, people are actually mad that his wife didnt got the money after letting people use his image with CGI and animatronics to archieve said acting. The movie is literally a love letter to Alien fans, even has the Alien isolation phone booths everytime an action scene will play out, just like how in Isolation you have phone booths to save before and after shit goes down. The point of Romulus is that Human life doesnt matter, its show from the corporation to the cosmic horror of the universe, wich is kinda the same of the first movie. I understand the point of recycling dead actors like nothing (very ironic with the theme of this movie about human life not mathering) but i think saying its wasted potential its too much.

The irony of seeing a Mega Corporation in Disney getting their hands on the Xenomorph and then weaponizing it is not lost on me.

Critics have become so out of touch with the general audience. You’d think this movie was as bad as jack and Jill the way y’all carrying on lol.

You're the only one who feels this way

Loved when the Facehuggers said: ,,It’s FaceTime baby!“

I think a lot of creators really expected most people to not enjoy this movie based on the amount of content I’ve seen of them claiming this movie was lacking or uninspired or a disappointment and the subsequent backpedaling when general audiences celebrate it.

Honestly these are valid points of this movie, like I get what people in the comments say but these points definitely make sense on why you feel a little disappointed in this movie, like AI dead guy in a movie could definitely leave a sour taste in one’s mouth

This is exactly how I’ve been feeling finally put into words, thank you!

Some commenters really put this on the corner of their phone and open tiktok for real 😭 He gave this movie a 3 star and complimented it bruh is it not good enough for yall title readers??

My least favourite part was when they show Kay using the serum on herself. They already cut away from her before just looking at it, debating it and leaving it up to audiences for interpretation, but then they just show it anyway? Why? Now the final act surprise isn’t a surprise lol. That just screams test audiences who were too dumb to get what was happening.

i have never seen an alien film, but i loved this movie. i went into the movie theater with the lowest of expectations thinking i would fall asleep at some point cause i'm not a fan of sci-fi movies at all but i was at the edge of my seat throughout the whole film and after leaving the theater i felt motivated to watch the old films so i guess that's a win for the franchise. maybe to people with higher expectations and more knowledge of the franchise this movie could be disappointing? i don't know, what i do know is that i loved the movie and i don't think i have enjoyed watching a movie so much in a while!

This movie turned out wat i expected Alien Covenant is probably the most interested ive been in this franchise since the first move, David is my favorite protagonist/antagonist but it was way to weird and off the beaten path for people, so of couse they'd go back to square one...

summed my thoughts up perfectly with this, the core roots of the franchise being a tense and suspenseful horror flick with an underlying narrative of corporate apathy is such a rich subject matter that its crazy that they just rehashed most of the sequels, whilst half baking all of the concepts in them into some ridiculous break-neck rollercoaster of the alien universe. going back to truckers in space forced to die due to a company's lack of care for their wellbeing is incredibly relevant today, and alien romulus kind of dipped its toes into that idea with this films opening, but then it jsut fell back into the same old shit.

Apart from the (way too many) callbacks, they managed to nail the atmosphere and flair of Alien, something that we havent seen since Alien 2 all those years ago. They even went so far to go back to having retro futurism in the movie, unlike Prometheus and Covenant, who both felt out of place technology wise. With the film being the second highest grossing Alien movie, I hope we see a sequel in the near future, that keeps what they did right here, but tone down the callbacks to a minimum. (I also hope they get a more adult cast again; while I did enjoy the cast of this movie and think they integrated why they are so young perfectly into the story, its still evident that they wanted to do a "teenage horror" movie)

The title really sums up perfectly the state of cinema right now I wish they were allowed to try new things instead of sequels and rehases of nostalgic things

I saw it coming. This movie was supposed to be another reiteration of the same formula. You can change the setting, modernize the concept but it's still the same story all over again. They need to go to Alien's original planet and keep exploring the Engineer lore.

The first movie of any legacy sequel/reboot always plays it safe. If it does well, they do crazy stuff in the sequel. Star wars, any horror reboot, etc

Alien, Aliens, & Alien Romulus. My top 3 Alien movies. Each I like for different reasons. They all tell different stories with different moods. But Romulus I actually really enjoyed a lot.

Yes [insert Such Wasted Potential meme] Can you finally make the Norm of the North 4 video please? I just want closure at this point 🤠

one bit of 'the audience needs to be spoonfed the information to understand whats going on' that PISSED me off i laughed in the theatre was in the beginning when the temperature is going up and the characters are taking their jacket off - we see them sweating, we see the literal dials of the temp readings increase, and yet one of them still said "wow, it's getting really hot in here" with no other conversation!! what a pointless little moment. but yes, i'm glad you feel this way, it makes me feel less crazy. i saw it with a bunch of my pals, and most of them LOVED it, one was more in alignment with you. i enjoyed it, i thought it was a good follow up to the first movie (tho i've only ever seen alien and aliens), the set design and overall design aspects of the film were outstanding, enough of the movie had me tense, and the finale was really horrifying. but ian holm's likeness being used was strange and upsetting. the characters being teenagers and doing dumb teenager things and then being confused about why everything was going wrong really irked me. there weren't any 'new' things the xenomorphs and facehuggers were doing, really, so i wasn't terribly interested in a lot of the chase scenes until kay's baby creature. i thought maybe the writers had this twist/creature as an independent horror idea and didn't get funding for that story, so they attached it into an alien franchise movie they did get money to make. also, tw i suppose - a main theme i read in the original alien movie was about sexual violence, particularly about how terrifying rape is to men / the total disregard of gender 'power' and the threat of losing bodily autonomy. this film touched the surface of doing the inverse and i don't think it worked very well. with the only facehugger victim being female, the one british kid forcibly inserting an electric rod into the (distractingly) yonic egg womb thing to kill the xenomorph, motherhood as the catalyst for kay's death, rain trying to sway andy's mercy by revealing kay's pregnancy, it felt like once again a horror movie has perpetrated the sexual violence onto the female-ness of the movie and was really off-putting. sorry this is so long, oops. great video, i love hearing your thoughts :)

As someone who’s seen two alien movies (Alien 1 and Romulus) I really liked Romulus. Ian Holm being the android doesnt bother me because I genuinely didn’t realize it was him when I was watching it. I think Romulus was awesome

idk how this is worse than dp3

I love how the trailers showed so much and even spoiled who the Synth was.

I watched alien Romulus recently with my girlfriend and afterwards we rewatched the older movies because I didn’t remember them that well. I then noticed all of the nostalgia in the movie and thought it was pretty cool at first but After awhile I honestly wish the movie did more, I knew from the beginning that it was going to go off the same movie beats as the first one and it still was just a rehash of alien a fun one but still a rehash. I hope there’s another movie coming out and I would just love them to do more

Great video man!! Have loved your recent reviews!

I’m convinced Hollywood heard us when we said we hated remakes so their solution was to pass those same remakes off a sequels.

Romulus is my first Alien movie and I loved it!! Afterwards I had me and my bf sit down and watch the original Aljen from 1979 and I loved it just as much. We’re working on watching Aliens right now and I’m liking what I see from it. From what I’ve heard though, some of the newer movies aren’t so good, but I did really enjoy Romulus a lot.

There's truly so little about this movie that isn't good, but the shadow those parts cast over the rest of the movie is so large it brings so much good stuff down with it. The focus on the facehuggers as a horror vehicle was thrilling. The opening stuff on the ground of a colony planet works so well. The characters were fine. The horror set-pieces were all solid to great. The aliens were genuinely freaky. The last act was peak weirdo shit. But, lord, CGI faces bring such a void presence to legacy sequels. A black hole snake-eating-tail creative choice that sucks so much good will out. And all the dialogue call-backs? What the fuck. Those characters don't know why they're saying these things!! It's bafflingly vacuous. Your idea of it being Andy fucking rules. I would've also accepted a version of David/Walter. But, in any case, Ash/Rook was so, so not the move.

So glad writers copy and paste characters instead of making new original characters

alien rhombus

While I'm not saying I necessarily agree with the choice to have his likeness in the movie, The director asked the estate and they said yes. Specifically his wife said he loved the character of Ash in particular.

***spoiler alert*** Only problem I had with it was the opening scene where they recover the original alien from the wreckage of the Nostromo. If any wreckage would have been left it certainly wouldn't be floating together in a fixed location - it would've been blasted in a million different directions following it's self destruction and would still be flying through space. Ripley also piloted the escape craft away from the point of detonation, and when she shot the alien out of the airlock you see it get blasted apart by the thruster. Yet somehow we're supposed to believe it cocooned itself to be easily recovered at the impossible wreckage? Really lazy setup.

Will you do a video on diary of a wimpy kid Cavin fever

no,, no..y- you don get to,,,,. you dont get to do that ,,,

as soon as cgi ian holm showed up i groaned. i understand the sentiment, but why? this is exactly how i felt about the recent ghostbusters movies.

Exactly. At least Prometheus isn't a retread.

I loved the part where the Alien shouted : "It's Romulus Time !"

I blame the dreaded Grisney influence

The setup and the pace of the movie is the elephant in the room here filled with the dull and boring cast is like the nail on the coffin beside all of that everything is good and worth watching

The male actor who is the brother of the pregnant lady. (Yes i forgot their names. I only watched it a couple days ago.) is the actor who plays in Shadow and Bone. I recognized him immediately! Anyways I personally liked this movie. Had me on the edge of my seat the entire time, and the scenes were INTENSE! I give it 4/5 stars. ❤Great storyline, great actors, great cinematography, great atmosphere. Some of it i didnt like were some of the choices, including Andy just letting a pregnant woman *almost* die…. 😢

24 frames of rick

please do generation loss: the founder’s cut (its on youtube)

DERS SUMFUH IN THE WATUH

Oh man i really loved this movie though... I really thought the movie was absolutely thrilling from the sound design to the direction and the music! Am I crazy 🥲 That scene where everything goes quiet and all we hear is her chilling scream was AMAZING!!

To me, thought movie was good, but I just hate the ending. I'm sure not many mind it, but I just don't like the black goo, I hate it, the final creature yes is scary but at the same time I just want the aliens, nothing special, no black goo, just xenomorphs.

I agree with everything you said but honestly I completely forgot about all of that the second that girl gave birth to the human alien boy. I love that long boy very much and in fact I wish he would have killed the main character and won the movie. He is my favorite long little guy

the alien hybrid reminded me of the SCP the Shy Guy

the movie was great unfortunately people are nitpicking this film to pieces.

The pointless soapboxing trying to imply that animating a face is "morally indefensible" is just bizarre. Going by the information in this video the family of the actor were in support of the choice. But you think you have more of a right to restrict someone's likeness than that family, for no reason other than *you* aren't comfortable with someone else's death not having *enough* impact on art? Which is also wild to imply that somehow death restricting the possibilities of art is somehow a moral "given" and that nobody should ever consider otherwise?? I get that over the top critique is the gimmick of the channel and it's usually entertaining, but surely there was more to make fun of in the movie without having to invent a moral panic on top of it lol

The movie started great with the backstory of youngsters in a worker colony, then it had its cool slasher and thrilling moments, but yeah - shallow characters, pastiche upon pastiche and uhhh ending with a "final boss". I do love the aesthetics of Alien universe, but Romulus clearly had a identity issue. Ended up giving it a 3/5.

Man if the movie kept the same vibe it had for the first 40ish minutes it would’ve been godly. It would’ve essentially gave us an Alien Isolation movie, which is something I think the franchise needs. From Aliens onwards the franchise became straight action and the Xenomorphs weren’t scary. Or the movies tried to rewrite what the Xenos are outright with the prequels (which I for one despised). In regard to Romulus I liked it, it broke the streak of garbage or meh movies we’ve been getting. I just wish it chilled on the callbacks and instead of jumping from set piece to set piece it gave more development for the characters.

So you didn't like it cuz it used AI and retreaded old ground? Aight

This movie was great and a fun viewing lol. It definitely deserves the watch

They MUST hand the reigns over to Niel blomkamp

Unfortunately, i completely agree with everything youve said. I really wanted to love this film. The practical facehuggers, the set design (which they absoutely nailed), i thought the new stage between chestbuster and full xenomorph was done pretty well and ticked the right HR Giger boxes. But the uncanny valley Rook took me out of it a bit, and if they had stuck with "Get away from her" i could have taken that as a nice nod. The last 2 words were just so jarring to hear from that character that had no reason to say them though. If anything, from the director of Evil Dead 2013, i thought they held back on the gore to be fair. I would have guessed thats likely Disney, but having seen Deadpool and Wolverine, they didnt hold back much there. Though i can appreciate its a different tone. Nice to see facehuggers getting the spotlight, but i agree, the film was weighed down a bit too much with having to try and link to every other Alien film. I think with a few small edits it could have been a much better end product. That said, still had fun with it, same as you, just wish it had been closer to its potential.

hey nick how are you doing

If I took a woman to see Romulus she probably wouldn’t wanna go out with me anymore because the film is isn’t good. Alien was a FILM to see I’m sure. No spoilers in the trailer. It wasn’t recycled from past films and it had genuinely frightening aspects of the synthetic’s suspicious behavior and the alien’s appearance and unknown nature. Romulus does nothing but annoyingly add stupidity to the franchise. The lab scene. The end scene. The plot. The way characters die it’s all just so silly and can’t be taken seriously and it’s NOT FRIGHTENING. IT IS NOT GOOD LOL

You are absolutely not the only one who feels this way

The beginning felt way too slow for me, just when I started to get really into the movie there was 30 mins left, but the ending made it worth it

Nice vid! I liked the film quite a bit, the only truly abysmal parts for me were the shitty CGI on rook and the beginning of the film. Everything else I was quite fond of . I also follow u on Letterboxd 🙏🙏🙏

people loved the movie at first but now are shitting on it, its kinda sad honestly

you say you want to give the film the recognition it deserves, but then nitpick it to death bro. If maybe 1 total minute of nostaglia/fanservice in a 120 minute experience pulls you out of the movie then idk maybe modern movies just aren't for you

This seriously just pissed me off lol

I know it would have sucked but damn man I just wanted Neill Blomkamp's Alien 5.

i loved it ngl

Bringing back a dead actor using AI in a franchise where humans are so afraid to die that they'll travel space to find their maker is a bit ironic

IT WAS A LITTLE MID!!!

I enjoyed Rook and the fact he looked like Ash, I don't see anything wrong with that, he looked like a damaged waxey android that very much resembled Ash, no big deal. What annoyed me was the stupid alien human hybrid, it was an awful idea in Alien Resurrection and just as awful in Romulus. There were sooo many plot holes in this film, but not quite as bad as Prometheus.

It's sad that some people let stuff like this ruin a great movie for themselves.

I wish they used Bishop instead

Thank you so much for agreeing with me on this that this movie is honestly underwhelming. Since I watched it, I've seen so many tiktoks about how this movie was so good, and the ending was terrifying, and I was just like... really? I've never watched an alien movie before, so I didn't know about the callbacks, or even what to expect, but this movie wasn't really scary and was a lot more of an action movie than I expected. I did still enjoy it, and the cinematography was absolutely gorgeous, but I never really found it more than entertaining. I did also give it three stars, but if I knew about the callbacks, I'd be tempted to lower it as well.

Just rewatched the original, and I honestly view Romulus as a superior remake of sorts

The movie is good 👍 I suggest watching it if you like the alien movies

I fell asleep This was a PG alien Idk they needed a larger team More deaths From aliens or mistakes 😂

I watched this having not watched any other of the alien movies and I enjoyed myself but it didn’t till me with the dread I expected and some of the dialogue was cringe. I didn’t feel any jeopardy and the fact someone who had never been into space before was able to survive all that

Had only ever seen the first Alien movie as it started as a horror movie then evolved into an action sci fi franchise much like Terminator. So I never got into the movies like. I did take my 16 yo sister to this movie and we both really enjoyed it as the standalone cosmic horror film, so I don't care so much for lore. Even at that I could tell that the one android was resurrectiom CGI which I also didn't like, sick movie though for any newcomer.

1:16 couldn't have said it better myself. As someone who grew tired of the generic space expedition (ft. Xenomorphs) that've been getting slopped out since 1992 i huffed up this genuinely horrific and exhilarating encore from a Xenomorph. Simply so to speak it's like a dlc to a multiplayer horror game you have hundreds of hours in that makes it scary again. I don't give a significant amount of shits towards other people's opinions but im just saying everyone else from what i hear likes the film too so ya

i enjoyed it, but....i agree

The movie was great!!! but it had a weird direction with fan service-y dialogue and characters????? And imo trying to fit the "black goo" was, bad. Although the offspring was very disturbing ngl it was fun to experience that I love Alien 1979, so... this new entry didn't do it for me, but i like it.

7 seconds ago is crazy

Unironically love this movie except for the inclusion of a certain character.