Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus (2024) was fine. Which is the best result since Alien³. We were promised a back-to-basics Alien movie and we got that. It has none of the ambition of Prometheus, but doesn’t faceplant like it either. It’s a straight-up monster funhouse ride with very few surprises.

Which is cool as I hated the biggest surprise it does have.

The most effective sequence for me was establishing the world this bunch of dead-end kids are willing to risk their lives to escape from. The Company made a planet habitable... just.

It feels to me kind of like a retread of Resurrection, as there’s semi-successful cloning, an abandoned facility, a lot of setpieces that are “wouldn’t it be cool if” riffs, and a final new monster thingy who is less hilarious but also less engaging.

And it’s a Prometheus callback which I was not looking for.

It fumbles the chestburster scene.

Some of the recycled dialogue is fine and makes sense in context, but there’s at least one eyeroller.

The best thing about it is the relationship of Rain and Andy, who are also the only characters you’re really expected to care about.

I might have liked it better if it ended fifteen minutes earlier without the final reveal

And the surprise? That will always be creepy, and not in the way an Alien movie is supposed to be creepy.

Not really thinking about an ALIEN game any more.

Happy to have seen it big and loud in IMAX, but pretty much purely as a ride.