In my sophomore year at Bryant High School, a movie sequel to a small, but successful, horror film crushed the box office in 1986. A little known filmmaker by the name of James Cameron hit the scene only two years earlier when he wrote and directed The Terminator and was given the keys to the simply titled Aliens. Most expected young Cameron would follow the slow-burning, horror recipe baked by Ridley Scott. That didn’t happen.

Instead, perhaps inspired by the runaway success of The Terminator, Cameron kept lead actress, Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ridley and the excruciating tension of the original leading her to an Oscar nomination but flipped the action lever to Insanity. He managed not only to morph Weaver into a full on, bad ass but to lead actors like Bill Paxton and Michael Biehn to career-defining performances.

Yet, in spite of a future A-list cast, gut-punching action and brilliant special effects, Cameron took the Xenomorph from one-time movie monster to, the most nightmarish horde of murder bugs in the history of cinema. I could even argue that it’s the greatest alien villain ever created. But not today.

The drooling, second teeth launching, flesh ripping Xenomorph was so compelling it’s been followed by a pair of sequels, a prequel and a couple of disposable manufactured monster mash ups in Alien vs Predator and the shittier sequel. And that brings us to today.

The last 30 days the mega-hyped, big budget second prequel, Alien:Romulus, has shown up on TV, TikTok and likely, every other medium out there. The trailers have all the magic you want so I went into it cautiously optimistic. And, let me clearly state, it’s not the big ball of suck that was AVP. And, it’s the best outing since the first two. But, like every single 80s action movie remake, it suffers from being a less-memorable, less fun reboot instead of bringing a unique angle. At least until the horrific ending. In this version, the do some role reversals pertaining to androids and humans. In this case, Cailee Spaeny is the young actress being asked to shoulder the Ellen Ridley type character and she just doesn’t. Her brother, an android, is also central to the plot and he does a solid job. The problem is they ripped off Aliens so much in plot it got insulting. They never should have let that young lady get on an elevator to go BACK DOWN and face the monsters to rescue her brother. And they never, ever, ever, EVER should have let him utter the most iconic phrase from the Alien franchise. You know the one, “Get away from…..” I’m not finishing it because it should have never been written. So, not a prequel as much as a reboot. But, in spite of all that, it was a decent, tense outing with plenty of juicy alien attacks and close ups to that horrifying head and its hissing, dripping teeth. No, the problem is someone decided that they needed to up the game at the very end by introducing a new variation of the Xenomorph that’s an absolute kick in the nuts. It’s less scary, less impressive and just seemed like a lazy last ditch effort to make this NOT a straight remake with some role reversals.

Look, if you love the Alien franchise, it’s still better than the third one where they start the movie letting you know that, after all Riley went through to save them, Newt and Hicks managed to get killed anyway. But what it doesn’t do is present anything more than a good opportunity to watch the Xenomorphs lay waste to a bunch of humans you don’t care about and then slap you with some bullshit evolution at the end that makes no sense in a prequel.

But, keeping with the past decade, it does maintain the perfect record of not one single 80s action movie reboot being better.

Now you can see it without overhyped expectations and just enjoy the carnage!