I just finished seeing Romulus earlier in the evening at the Regal Cinema in Union Square. Have to say, I went in with low expectations, but came out satisfied after seeing the movie. The cinematography, sound quality and monster designs were fantastic.
I thought it was good that the characters had backstories, and that there was actual world-building attempted in showing a Weyland-Yutani colony. That said, I didn't care too much for the side-characters, but Rain and Andy complimented each other well; there was good character growth between the two in the short time they were featured. Andy seemed oddly conflicted about his programming at times, which may imply that there was either some self-awareness involved in his decision-making, or his constant reprogramming had left some deleterious effect on his psyche. His presence in the story also prevented Rain from becoming a typical "Mary Sue" character - which has been the recent flavor of movies in the past decade.
Rain seemed to have been a character clone of Ripley (in terms of what she does in the film, and not her personality). Although, that may have been a good, safe thing to do for the story, since attempts to introduce a stronger female lead into the Alien-verse, would've been insulting to Ripley's legacy. And although the actress did an okay job with the role, I'm not sure if I'd be interested in seeing her in another movie.
The horror aspects of the film were handled well, in my opinion. There's a scene where an Alien was being "birthed" from a cocoon - which was implied to be its final stage of growth. I thought that it was a fairly good addition to the franchise, because we've never actually seen the transition of a chestbuster to a fully grown "adult". There was a also certain appropriateness of seeing the Alien's phallic-shaped head force its way out of the detached, utero-cocoon, as its hands tore free and crackled into shape. There's just something disgusting and vile about that imagery that suits the Xenomorph's physiology and behvior quite well.
As for the "Slendermorph" - I didn't find it terrifying by itself from the leaked footage. But, once I saw its origins - black goo that mutated Kay's unborn baby, it completely changed my perspective on it. That thing was the stuff of nightmares (especially it's creepy tendency to smile as it stares down at its victims - akin to a newborn infant, looking merily at a toy it wants to play with). I thought it was definitely handled better than the Alien-hybrid from Resurrection.
Anyways, that's it for now. I'd give the movie a 7/10. It's definitely third place for me in ranking of the Alien films - with Alien and Aliens being the top two. I believe that Romulus did what it needed to do, in order to reintroduce this franchise after several disappointing entries (even if that meant rehasing the "greatest hits" of Aliens). It didn't disappoint.
