Alien: Romulus – Movie Review

TL;DR – Beware of Weyland-Yutani Corp representatives bearing gifts.  

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Jackob's Star Planet.

Alien: Romulus Review

I have always had an interesting relationship with the Alien films. When I was a kid, a snippet of people crawling through an air vent and a life sign catching up with them scared the life out of me. It goes without saying that Aliens have the legacy it has for a reason. However, recent entries have always pulled me in different directions. For example, Alien: Covenant was a stunningly beautiful film filled with people acting like they had no sense. However, there is a core of these films that can work, and that was what I was looking for today.

So, to set the scene, life is hard in Jackson’s Star Mining Colony, 60-odd light years from Earth. While the mines are rich, the storms constantly rain, the clouds block out the sun, and the mine continually kills people through collapse or disease. Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) has worked hard to get her quota done so she and her brother Andy (David Jonsson) can get off and go live in an independent farming colony when they discover that The Company has doubled their quota. They must stay for six more years. Rain is distraught, but her old friend Tyler (Archie Renaux) may have found an out. He and his crew, Kay (Isabela Merced), Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Navarro (Aileen Wu), have discovered an old ship left in orbit that has an intact hypersleep chamber. If they can steal it, they could get off-planet. The only problem is why the ship is abandoned.

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Movie Review – Annihilation

TL;DR – Annihilation is a slow burn that then hits you like a freight train and then messes with your mind till it becomes putty, would recommend watching this, but maybe not at night.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Annihilation banner

Review

What is good sci-fi? As someone who loves this gene in all of its permutations, good sci-fi could be the grand space operas of Star Wars, Stargate or The Expanse, the more character driven works like Moon and The Martian. They can be thought-provoking works like Star Trek or Arrival, or thumping action set-pieces of Mad Max. Now sometimes they can be the weird contemplative works that dip into science, horror, supernatural, blending that hard and soft sci-fi into new and wonderful ways, and today’s Annihilation is the later. Now before we jump in I do have to say because the film begins in medias res, that is it opens on the ending, it is hard to talk about the film without getting into [SPOILERS] straight from the start, even with our setting the scene part of the review. If you have not seen Annihilation you may need to be a bit more careful going forward, as there will be major plot points discussed throughout.

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