You may be looking at the number of stars and saying that you know how this review is going to go. But I have to let you in on a secret.

I love the Alien franchise. (Ok, the Deadpool was a red herring. Hope you like fish.) I’m sure my parents didn’t take 8 year old me to see the original in the theater. But I guarantee you that 15 year old me was waiting in line to see Aliens. Remember when we had to wait in lines just to get the tickets to see a movie? There were 3 cars in the movie lot when I pulled in last night to see Romulus. I love having a theater to myself, but I do also kinda miss lines. Lines made it feel like more of an experience. And like the movie business was healthy. The last three movies I saw by myself on opening weekend were in a theater with just me. Not sure how this small town theater stays open I don’t buy that much popcorn (ok, maybe I do) and I won’t pay $5 for snocaps in the same size box they sell at Dollar Tree for $1.25. (Wow, I lose focus on the subject matter really quick, don’t I?)

Back to the film. This starts in a world that feels wonderfully crafted and sculpted. Vehicles in the streets of a dark and dingy dystopian society where we can viscerally feel and taste that humanity may be still existing in the future, but we aren’t living life. Life is just existing until you don’t. Happiness and fun don’t exist on this world where the sun doesn’t even shine. So it is no surprise that our main characters Rain and Andy are looking to get off world. But it isn’t that easy. The mining company has it’s own Catch 22 scenario. You can leave as soon as your contract is fulfilled, but when you reach that threshold, don’t be surprised when they move the goalposts.

So Rain and Andy engage in a risky plan to get offworld with 4 other associates (not sure I would call them friends, but in this society friends don’t seem to exist the way we understand them.) We have Tyler who seems to be a genuine friend to Rain. And Bjorn who is just an ass. Kay is fairly quiet, but part of that we learn is due to being pregnant. And Navarro, also fairly quiet but she is a pretty confident pilot. The plan to escape their life is somewhat simple, albeit odd. Orbiting the planet is a derelict space station. This ragtag group has access to a cargo ship which they use to leave the surface to enter the space station. Why would they go to the space station you ask? The cargo ship can travel long distances, but it takes 9 years to reach the planet they want to go to, and for that they need cryo pods. The space station has cryo pods.

I’m uncertain why the derelict space station is simply floating there. Such a thing must have cost billions to construct. Why would nobody try and salvage it? Try and get it fixed and back online. The company behind it should have come for it. Right? But ignoring that nitpick for a minute.

Our crew arrives and is able to power up the station enough to find the cryo pods. Mission accomplished! End of story. Well no. The cryo pods aren’t fully powered and only have enough power to run 3 years. A little digging and they find a lab where cryo power is used and they can take those to make up for what is needed. If you’ve seen any of the Alien movies though, you know what happens in a lab. The cryo containment is full of facehuggers that seem to have been giving the Han Solo carbonite treatment. Unfortunately for them, Bjorn causes a mishap that traps them in the cryo lab and triggers a warm up in the lab. So all those facehugger ice cubes are starting to thaw. That can’t end well.

Kay is the only one who didn’t enter the space station, so the 5 crew on the station are on the run from facehuggers. Naturally someone gets impregnated by the seed of a hugger. A belief that they stopped it before it happened is found to be wrong. And then they get separated intentionally by Bjorn, leaving Rain, Andy, and Tyler on the station.

Time for a second nitpick. The time from being hugged on the face to the chestburster emerging is massively accelerated. The original movie it felt like it was several hours before the creature escaped. Navarro barely makes it back onto the ship. Movie time and real time were in sync here and it felt like 5-10 minutes from the time the facehugger was disengaged to the time she died. We don’t really see much after the bursting. There is a countdown timer on the station though. Telling how long until the station connects with the planetary ring that will destroy it. Kay finds the molted skin of the burster. And then Bjorn finds a cocoon where the adult is growing. I did really like the idea of the adult growing the way it was shown here. But again, time. What the hell. Growth time is so super accelerated in this movie. The adult has matured in about 5 minutes after bursting, maybe 10. I’m not going to get into the debate about how they generate the mass needed to grow. Our understanding of biology is only relevant to what we know. That’s how science works. It is an absolute scientific fact up until something else is discovered that is contrary to that. New knowledge is how science works.

The attempt of the stranded characters to return to their ship takes us on a wild and fun ride. I don’t want to go into every spoilerific thing I could. Because there is one big one coming (in the movie, not this review.) This was a fun movie with a really good story (take that Deadpool!) The main thing remaining that bothered me is such a common trope in movies it makes me hate all movies! Stupid lazy non creative writers and creators. Just as the fourth and final lever is about to be pulled… interruption happens. I get it. It adds tension. But artificially. In a way that makes me want to punch the writer (as a writer I say this filled with hyperbole. And maybe rage too.) Especially when the triggering of the final lever is done in a dumb way. (This issue is akin to my hatred of two people fighting and one is dominant choking the life out of the other, but the one on the brink of death is reaching for a weapon that their fingertips just manage to brush against and the choking and the reaching and the choking and then suddenly they grab the weapon and victory is theirs! At this point I want the struggling and reaching hero dead. I don’t care that it would end the movie, you just triggered me.)

But back to the movie. I really enjoyed this one a lot. And wouldn’t mind seeing it again in theaters. You know my penchant for 8 star reviews, but this rises above the chaff and mediocrity of the really good to attain the quality of really gooder. And thus earns a 9 star review from me.

(Editor note: (that’s me by the way) In writing this I discovered that my entire life I have used penchance as a tense variant for penchant. And that was wholly made up. Make sure you learn something new every day kids!)