Admittingly, I’m not been the biggest of fan of the Alien franchise. However, the first Alien movie of 1979 I do admit is a pure classic. It was ahead of its time, and the alien creature was the stuff of pure sci-fi horror. Even by today’s standard, the creature, I feel, can still lure in new fans to the franchise. I remember Prometheus and Covenant being pretty decent by expanding on the storyline. Ultimately, though, I kinda expected something special with Alien: Romulus to continue that trend. It has been almost seven years since the release of Covenant in 2017. Instead, after having watched this latest installment in the franchise, I’m left with one simple question: WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS MOVIE?

While I don’t necessarily have too much to complain about with Alien: Romulus as a sci-fi movie in general, I completely fail to see the point of it where the franchise is concerned. You take out certain elements, and you basically have a reboot and formula of the first Alien. Taken as a whole, I guess it wants to show what would happen when the DNA of the alien creatures along with humans are intertwined with each other? In what seems to be the finding of pure life itself in the creatures, it was ultimately the goal of the Weyland-Yutani corporation’s goal to genetically enhance the human genome to make them more resilient to life in space as it was said that humans are weak (tell me something new please). The actions here may be a slight precursor to Prometheus and Covenant? I guess?

With that out of the way, Alien: Romulus is fairly decent. It follows the tried and true formula of cast planning for adventure, stumbles upon old ship, discovers alien creatures, experience catastrophic event in which they must escape while battling the aliens and finally, an ending that doesn’t really end things but leaves you semi-hanging until the next release. Hooray? Nothing really stands out other than maybe the acid in gravity scene? I usually try to find something funny in any movie I watch across all genre, simply because I can’t help it. It wasn’t too far into the movie when I realized that although a corporation has the billions and billions of dollars to terraform other planets in the future, they still allowed a random synthetic AI robot to be able to access their ship. Oh, and not just any random AI robot, but supposedly a very outdated model one at that! Rather than setting up some secure authentication and authorization procedure for ship access, one can simply just find any old AI synthetic robot, stick their finger in a scanner and away you go. I guess even in the far, far future, companies still don’t give one shit about security.

While Alien: Romulus was still a fairly fun movie, I just can’t keep asking myself on what exactly is the point of it? Is it to draw in new viewers to a franchise that started back in 1979 with shiny new graphics, AI synthetic robot and a more diverse cast? It’s obvious that I’ll need to read on the opinions of others who are much more familiar with the franchise as a whole than I am but on the surface, I’m just not seeing it. I also don’t personally feel like re-watching Prometheus and Covenant and yet I don’t want to wait another 5-7 years for the next movie release although Wikipedia has labeled Alien: Romulus as a spin-off in the franchise. What’s a guy to do but wait?