MG_84

Another film focussing on nauseating self-centred social media influencers. Another "found footage" film that brings nothing new or interesting...potentially even less than the minimum you'd expect.

At points it seems like it's trying to being satirical about how pretentious, ostentatious and vapid influencers are, but it's not done well if that was a motive of the writers as it would be missed by most viewers as the fake product placements ads almost glorify them.

The story itself is rather hollow. While there's some attempt to tie it to ancient slavic rituals of the main character's grandmother and ancestors, there's no depth to it at all, or any real back-story, and is merely a minor attempt to create the basis for the "creepy old lady in the dark" trope.

The visual and aural aspects were fantastic with great set design, atmospheric music pulled from the originals and practical effects which are far more effective than their CGI counterparts. It doesn't always capture the claustrophobic feeling of the original, but it does a good job of recreating the feel of the Alien universe.

The format is pretty standard to the "requels" - rehash the same ideas, throw in some nostalgic references and a fresh-faced cast and call it new. If I asked you to name a film with a strong female lead where a member of a ship's crew is attacked by a parasite, leading to a new alien bursting out of the crew member's chest, which sets off a series of events whereby a fully grown Xenomorph hunts the rest of the crew around a spaceship that they're unable to escape from, where you're unsure of the motives of the droid crew-member, and a big final battle which requires our hero to get into a space suit...you might think I was talking about the 1979 original. Nope, that's this "new" instalment in the series too.

If you've seen any of the original Alien films, you've effectively already seen this one. That said it's entertaining enough if you keep your expectations low, munch some popcorn, try to enjoy the ride and can look past some cheesy delivery of nostalgic lines from the series.

Cailee Spaeny was fantastic as always and really showed up the lower quality acting from some of the others. She's no Sigourney Weaver/Ripley, but she does a good job. David Jonsson was also very good, and Isabela Merced's smaller role was performed well, but the rest felt a bit like an amateur school production of Alien was taking place.

For me personally Bjorn was the most aggravating and annoying character and I was desperate to see the end of him. Maybe that was the intention, if so it was great writing and performance, but otherwise he was just nauseating to watch and listen to.

Overall, I don't think you're going to hate it even if you loved some or all of the previous instalments, but you certainly shouldn't expect this to be an inventive or original instalment. The film gets better as it goes on due to fewer characters and more depth, but not enough to propel this beyond a nostalgic rehash.

This is a film that tries to create a fresh teen comedy but feels like they asked AI to create a synopsis for a teen comedy, threw in a few sex, drug, toilet and high-school bully based jokes and failed completely to create an engrossing, or new, take on a well-established sub-genre.

They also somehow managed to fit an extremely limited script into a 92 minute film. It feels incomplete and rushed, like the first episode of a television series rather than a full film.

Chuck in some blatant checkbox ticking which adds nothing to the film, story or characters and you start to get the picture of how lazy and devoid of substance this film is. For example, the sister is mentioned early on to be a lesbian, which is not a problem except for that fact it has no relevance to anything she does during the film, the story of the film or the (non)-development of the character she plays - so what was the point apart from to check off 'lesbian character' - it just felt forced and pointless due to its irrelevance. There are lots of other examples throughout the film which feel like they've been put in there just for the sake of it.

Throw in some pointless social media influencing, a random CGI nipple, a fecal joke, Bobby Carnavale's now all-too-common midlife-crisis creep character, and a flat, underdeveloped and dull rehashed storyline, and you start to realise it's another Netflix released aimed purely at new content rather than good content.

If you want a teen comedy, there are many that have done it far better. You won't be missing out by missing this.