Alien: Romulus is now in theaters around the world and the first reviews are in. Surprisingly, the film seems to be pretty good. That being said, are the review scores truly representative of the average?
Compared to any other entry in the Alien franchise (including the Alien vs. Predator crossover), Fede Alvarez’s (Evil Dead 2013, Don’t Breathe) take on the iconic sci-fi horror IP has undoubtedly won more critical acclaim (83% as of this writing) than any sequel or prequel since James Cameron’s Alien in 1986. That’s no easy feat.
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But of course, most entertainment fans prefer to check Metacritic to actually see the scores shared, as Metascore is a single score constructed from a weighted average of the top critics’ scores. As a result, Metascore is usually much lower than Tomatometers. In the case of the latest Alien movie, it currently has a score of 64/100, which is considered “generally favorable” in terms of movies.
That’s not a bad result, especially if you’re familiar with MC’s blockbuster averages. But how did it fare compared to the rest of the franchise? Well, it tied with 2012’s Prometheus and was below Alien: Covenant, Aliens, and Aliens (in ascending order). If you weren’t a fan of the Ridley Scott-directed prequels, this might not sound like good news, but Romulus was received more favorably by critics than either of those. The key point here is that the prequels were Slightly Those who liked them rated them higher, which explains why the MC rankings look noticeably different.
All in all, with a mix of positive, mixed, and negative reviews, it looks like veteran Alien fans will likely enjoy this movie, despite a bit of over-the-top fan service and a bit more respect for the previous movies than the surprisingly experimental sci-fi franchise has ever seen. While most agree that both Alien and Alien 2 are great, with reviews for the rest ranging from good to poor, one of the widely-accepted strengths of the Alien IP is that it allows every filmmaker to come in and do their own thing, so perhaps Romulus’s preference for practicality and respect for its predecessors over exploring new horizons is irritating even the most discerning of moviegoers. If that’s the case, that’s fair enough!
What about you? Will you be watching Alien: Romulus this weekend? How would you rank these movies?
