Alien: Romulus is now in theaters worldwide and the first reviews are out. That is, do critical approval ratings actually represent reliable average scores?
Compared to all other entries in the long-running Alien franchise, including the Alien vs. Predator crossover, Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead 13, Don’t Breathe) has taken a more serious approach to the iconic sci-fi horror IP. The interpretation is absolutely factual. This is no small matter.
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Of course, most entertainment fanatics prefer to look to Metacritic to actually see what scores are being shared, since Metascore is a single score constructed from a weighted average of scores from top critics. Therefore, Metascores are usually much lower than Tomatometers. In the case of the latest Alien movie, the current rating is 64/100, which is considered “generally favorable” for the film.
This isn’t a bad result either, especially if you’re familiar with heavy mean in MC. But how does it compare to the rest of the series? Well, it’s tied with 2012’s Prometheus and below Alien: Covenant, Alien, and Alien (in ascending order). This might not sound like great news if you weren’t a fan of the Ridley Scott-helmed prequels, but Romulus got more critics than those two. The key point here is that the prequels are slightly Those who like them rate them higher, which explains why the MC rankings look noticeably different.
All in all, with some positive, mixed, and negative reviews, veteran Alien fans will likely enjoy their time with this film, albeit with some heavy-handed fan service and a little more respect for its predecessor. There’s even more to see in the surprisingly experimental sci-fi series. While most people agree that Alien and Aliens are great, and everything else ranges from solid to terrible, a widely accepted advantage of the Alien IP is that it allows each filmmaker to come in and do their own thing , so perhaps Romulus’ preference for features and functionality that respects previous experience rather than exploring new horizons has irritated the most discerning of moviegoers. If so, that’s fair enough!
And you? Are you watching Alien: Romulus this weekend? How would you rank all the movies?
