Few franchises have passed through as many hands as the Alien series, and every director who has made an Alien film (except for the two AvP films, but we're not counting them) has gone on to an iconic career: Ridley Scott, David Fincher , and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The latest entry, Alien: Romulus, is helmed by someone who has already made a name for himself in the horror genre – Fede Alvarez. While not everything about Alvarez's take on the franchise works, it's exciting to see an Alien movie actually be scary again.

Alien: Romulus follows a group of young space colonists who make do with an abandoned space outpost in hopes of reaching freedom, only to encounter the "perfect killing machine," which puts them in a fight for their lives. After James Cameron's Aliens took the film on a more action-heavy sci-fi route, it's nice to see Romulus return the franchise to its horror roots.

There is very little sense in the story of Alien: Romulus. There are many threads introduced that could have been explored in more depth, from anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist messages involving the franchise's overarching antagonist, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, to an exploration of android ethics and artificial intelligence. These are incredibly hot topics that could have been used to make Romulus a much more impactful film, but Alvarez and co. seems content to let this be a straightforward monster movie, and it's a very entertaining one at that.

The film focuses on the emotional relationship between Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson's characters. Spaeny's performance is strong, capturing the same badassness of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley while bringing something emotionally new to the table, while Jonsson continues the franchise's trend of offering a more impressive performance as an android than the human lead.