Review Scores Ruined by "Fans": Watch and Judge for Yourself!

Rating: 10/10 (21 May 2017)

Minor spoilers ahead. I give this movie a 10, though I believe it to be a solid 7.8. The movie, as I write right now, stands at 6.9. The lower-than-expected rating is mostly by disappointed fans who wanted something for themselves. It is my hope that I compensate for the senseless and immature 1 star reviews. Movies, as are all forms of expressive mediums, ought to be viewed in light of a movie's entertainment value, narrative mechanisms, and, most of all, in light of the movie's genre. I see people disappointed about the "plot." It should be noted that the Alien franchise was primarily a horror franchise. The current installation brings the franchise around to its horror roots of the first Alien. Having that said, horror films by nature deliver very little plot: People flee and get killed by monsters, only one or two survives. So over-analyzing the main plot arch is an unjust and unproductive thing to do. Think back to the original Alien. Only a fool would say that the plot was "good." What made the first movie great was not the plot. What is productive is the background theme and the way the movie makes you feel. The movie combines the suspense that was absent from Prometheus, and the mystery that yet surrounds the Engineers and Xenomorphs excellently. The movie teases tiny bit about the Engineers, satisfying the curiosity I developed for them in Prometheus. But above all, I think Ridley Scott pulled what the original Alien movie did right: suspense. The suspense mechanisms were not as masterful as the first, to be sure. But it still has traces of a master filmmaker. The elements I have mentioned would bring the movie to a good 7.3. But I am compelled to add another .5 because of its thematic approach to the franchise. The movie continues the philosophical dialogue that began in Prometheus. It does something that the horror genre rarely do, and the movie does it well; it is a bold move that paid off. Is this film as good as the original? No. But it is a horror film that transcends the horror genre, leading the audience to engage intellectually.