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I thoroughly enjoyed this diptyched, at times quite humorous movie despite it being overly long in places (including that IMHO unnecessary intergenerational moralizing scene). That said, what a performance by the whole cast and in particular Mikey Madison. There wasn't quite enough setup to believe that some of the restraint shown by Mikey's handlers would have been as measured / relatively gentle as depicted but still, in context, all the cast were, well, well-cast. Mikey: Her performance could have gone so wrong and veered into caricature and maudlin stereotyping (or worse, trying for Showgirls II). Instead, you have a measured, fully-committed, fully believable performance that you, literally, can't take your eyes off of. I won't spoil the ending but just know you don't want to leave early.

P. S. Don't show this movie at your Sunday School class.

All the accolades heaped upon our current James Bond, aka, Daniel Craig aren't deserved, in my humble opinion. His acting comes across as completely detached from the reality of his situation...and I don't think even a strong dose of method acting a la Brando would have helped. It's like he's gone from Knives Out to this very different character (very flawed) study and he's frankly a fish out of water. I didn't think my time was well-spent watching this travelogue and the whole ending was an unnecessary 2001 ripoff that only cheapened the experience. Every moment Daniel Craig was on screen I thought to myself "This is a man trying way too hard to feel emotions beyond his Ken." The movie has too many pedantic moments, especially in the first 2/3rds, before it ventures off into hallucinogenic machinations.

I've seen every Alien movie in the franchise and trying to rank Alien: Romulus versus the others is tough because you have multiple categories such as script / plot, acting, special effects, sci-fi content, and editing. Script/Plot: The plot is incredibly derivative with lots of fan service...there's not an original concept in A:R...it steals unapologetically from the other franchise films. Script/plot: You have an absurd and nearly impossible setup with super immature people reacting like 8 year olds as though they were on the set of Prometheus (that's very annoying but at least this crew wasn't hired for a multi-billion space journey). The plot has huge, unbelievable holes. Acting: Cailee Spaeny has a future ahead of her and David Jonsson had a tough role, also believable. The other cast members were given to histrionics all too often. Special Effects: Top rate. Sci-fi content: Pretty nerdy visuals and lots of well-crafted display shots. Editing: Fairly snappy but the movie does drag at the beginning. // Overall, I found the plot of A:R so laughable in plausibility and so grossly lacking in original ideas (aka, sycophantic fan service) that I spent most of my time at Regal Edward's watching my Apple Watch warn me over and over about the nearly endlessly loud (90db+) volume level. In space you can't hear yourself scream because Regal Theaters made you deaf.