Alien: Romulus First Reviews – “An Old-School Chiller” That “Takes the Franchise To Exciting New Heights”

Alien: Romulus ' first reactions said the film is the "best in the franchise" with an intense final act , but now the first official full-length reviews are in: does that opinion hold up?

Critics have had their say on Alien: Romulus , rating it a Certified Fresh 83% from 127 reviews, a big step up from the last film released in the series, Alien: Covenant , which scored 65%.

"It thrives on twisting the knife in terms of building suspense and delivering gory jolts that are sure to make horror fans proud," Aaron Neuwirth from We Live Entertainment says.

This reaction feels in line with the early thoughts of audiences, and Brian Truitt of USA Today agrees, saying, "Alvarez is keeping an old-school chiller alive for a new generation".

As always, some differing opinions are sprinkled among the praise, with Esther Zuckerman of Bloomberg News saying that one particular moment in the film "ruined what was otherwise a fun, icky trip to space."

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian also had qualms, saying, that while Alien: Romulus is "a technically competent piece of work", he felt that "no matter how ingenious its references to the first film it has to be said that there's a fundamental lack of originality here which makes it frustrating.

So Alien fans can feel they've secured a win with this as the film prepares to head to theaters this weekend.

Alien: Romulus Review Roundup:

• BBC.com: [Álvarez] has triumphed with a clever, gripping and sometimes awe-inspiring sci-fi chiller, which takes the series back to its nerve-racking monster-movie roots while injecting it with some new blood – some new acid blood, you might say.
• Discussing Film: Alien: Romulus relies too much on nostalgia at times, but when director Fede Álvarez does present enough of his own fresh ideas, it takes the franchise to exciting new heights.
• Variety: This is closer to a grandly efficient greatest-hits thrill ride, packaged like a video game. Yet on that level it's a confidently spooky, ingeniously shot, at times nerve-jangling piece of entertainment.
• RogerEbert.com: It's fun, tense, and slimy. It’s also nowhere near as ambitious as some of the films in this series deemed failures. We can't have everything.
• indieWire: A gorehound whose tastes and talents are much better-suited to the Grand Guignol splatter of “Evil Dead” than they are to the suffocating dread of “Alien,” the director would rather torture his cast than develop their characters.

Related: Alien: Romulus Director Shares New Preview of Animatronic Xenomorph