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K-LOVE Live at Red Rocks

Exclusive two-night event featuring 2023 concert headliners, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive concert highlights, with performances by Zach Williams, We the Kingdom, Anne Wilson, CAI... Read all Exclusive two-night event featuring 2023 concert headliners, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive concert highlights, with performances by Zach Williams, We the Kingdom, Anne Wilson, CAIN, MercyMe, Jeremy Camp and more. Exclusive two-night event featuring 2023 concert headliners, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive concert highlights, with performances by Zach Williams, We the Kingdom, Anne Wilson, CAIN, MercyMe, Jeremy Camp and more.

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• November 6, 2023 (Canada)
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Glory to God in the highest.   Luke 2:14                  

• Mar 9, 2022

K-LOVE Gets into Movies with the Faith-Based Comedy "Family Camp"

Updated: Mar 12, 2022

The nation's largest Christian radio network branches out into feature films.

Already a giant in the world of faith-based entertainment, K-LOVE is adding movies to its arsenal. K-LOVE Films has teamed up with Provident Films and distributor Roadside Attractions for Family Camp , a comedy that will hit the silver screen in May.

The movie stars Tommy Woodard and Eddie James - a popular Christian comedy duo better known as The Skit Guys - whose characters take their families to a church camp where their polar-opposite personalities touch off the laughs. The rest of the cast includes Leigh-Allyn Baker and several strong Christian actors, including Gigi Orsillo , Robert Amaya and Mark Christopher Lawrence .

This is the first feature from K-LOVE Films, but it's not their first movie. They were one of the outfits involved in The Jesus Music documentary from the Erwin Brothers last year, which we reported on here and here . Like the K-LOVE radio network, the film company is owned by the California-based Educational Media Foundation, run by Bill Reeves . He is the founder of WTA Media (also now part of EMF), which finances and markets faith-based movies, including hits like I Can Only Imagine , War Room and God's Not Dead , so the K-LOVE Films' endeavor is not much of a stretch.

Back to Family Camp , Eddie James says in a press release that he has "dreamed about making a comedy feature film" for two decades. His partner Tommy Woodard adds that their hope is that through the picture, "families will not only laugh together, they will also draw closer to each other...and to God."

The movie is scheduled to release in theaters nationwide on May 13th . Until then, the trailer below will whet your appetite.

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As the story unfolds, K-Love is set to take on a journey filled with growing friendships, budding romance, inevitable chaos, and life-long lessons.

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The series follows the story of five Manila urbanites (in their 20s and 30s) as they deal with milestones, struggles, and confide in each other through laughter, heartaches, and regular weekly viewings of their favorite K-Drama shows. A K-Drama-inspired series that celebrates love, family, and friendship.

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Christian Movie Reviews: Why Do We Need Them?

• March 7, 2017

We’ve all been part of one of those trips to the movies where a group is deciding which movie they should see. Unless there is a film everyone is dying to see, there is usually a checklist that a person runs through to make the decision easier. First, what’s the plot of the film? If that gets a positive or neutral reaction, the next step is naming who’s in it. The final step is checking to see what the reviews say. This is a make or break moment for a lot of moviegoers. After all, if the people who do this for a living say a movie is bad, it must be bad. Why should we care what the reviews say? And what about Christian movie reviews?

There’s often a debate between friends that results in someone saying “If the critics didn’t like it, then I know there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll LOVE it.” So are reviews, Christian or not, simply the fossils of a bygone era? Is the new age of social media incompatible with the idea of media gatekeepers who establish whether or not a piece of art is good? Let’s take a look at what movie reviews are all about and where Christian movie reviews fit in.

The Nature of Movie Reviews

Nearly as long as there has been art, there have been people whose job it was to critique said art. The idea of criticism as an actual occupation first gained popularity in the 18th century in places like London and Paris. Fast forward to the 20th century and basically every newspaper, magazine, or TV/radio station has a critic for film, dining, books, and so on.

Just like with any other aspect of life, people want to know what are the best movies out there . While each individual can make up their own mind when it comes to their personal preferences, having the opinion of someone who is educated, or at least experienced, in film carries more weight. Even if you don’t like critics in general, you’ll still ask someone in your friend group with similar taste or more experience watching movies for their recommendations.

Why do some people not care for the opinions of movie reviewers? It really breaks down to how you view film. Critics are often college-educated writers who see film as this artistic medium in which each picture or performance should be broken down into a detailed analysis. Using a collection of these, he or she can piece together what the film is “really” saying and discuss that meaning for hours on end. Many average viewers simply want to watch something that is entertaining, funny, heartwarming, or a combination of all three. If you think of movies as as just fun entertainment, you probably don’t care about a detailed analysis of why a certain character wore a particular shirt color.

Christians in the Culture

Christians also fall into these two categories of viewers. Beyond that, people enjoy different genres more than others. For the Christian community, this typically breaks down to family friendly films in the areas of drama, comedy, and adventure.

As much as our world today revolves around media, there’s not much of a chance for Christians to avoid engaging in pop culture to some extent. There are some believers who feel that Christians should completely withdraw from the entertainment industry. While everyone has their convictions, there’s not a lot of evidence suggesting that doing so would lead to those institutions ever cleaning up their act. So, Christians are basically stuck with the choice of either trying to help the culture course correct or simply pushing the car off the cliff forever.

If Christians are to be a part of the culture, then it means that we should have our own creative thinkers out there influencing and providing commentary on what is trending. Christian movie reviews are part of the answer when it comes to engaging the culture while still hanging on to our values. For example, instead of every Christian going to see the latest erotic or profanity-laced film just to have an opinion, they can find Christian movie reviews from a trusted source that will give them a heads up.

Style + Content = Quality

What is the job of someone who is writing Christian movies reviews? Simply put, it is to grade a film for its artistic sensibilities and to judge its values from a Christian perspective . Upon reading a review from a Christian publication, you might find that the latest hit film is visually stunning and provides an interesting commentary on a hot button issue, but also features a number of elements that you don’t want to support.

On a personal level, Christian film reviews help us to live out our Godly calling while also enjoying certain aspects of the culture we live in. Reading up on a film's plot can spoil the story, but it might be worth it to you in order to avoid an unpleasant experience. The need for clean entertainment grows exponentially when children are factored into the mix. Instead of gambling on a popular film that you haven’t seen yourself, reading a quick review of the content should give you peace of mind.

Christian movie reviews are meant to judge a film on its artistic merit as well as what it has to say spiritually. This means that reading these reviews might also help you to think about your entertainment choices from a Christian mindset. What does your favorite superhero movie have to say about the nature of good and evil? How does the protagonist from your favorite period drama portray a Biblical idea of femininity? If we’re going to be consuming entertainment that isn’t always “Christian,” then we should at least think about how its message relates to our views.

Sources for Christian Movie Reviews

You might be surprised to know that there a few websites that offer quality Christian movie reviews. The first is PluggedIn , which has been on the scene for a long time. They offer in-depth reviews of movies, TV shows, video games, and more. Another Christian website that can help you navigate pop culture is Crosswalk . Here you can read up on the latest pop culture reviews and perhaps find a good devotional or religious commentary. These are just two of the popular sites out there that can help you and your family.

At the end of the day, Christians make up a fair number of the viewers who actively participate in pop culture. If we’re going to engage the entertainment world, it doesn’t hurt to have movie reviews that are catered to our beliefs and values. Whether or not you use them personally, Christian movie reviews are a helpful resource that allow believers to make educated decisions about what we watch.

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Love Lies Bleeding Reviews

[Director Rose] Glass creates a visceral cinematic world to match the overheated emotions and erotic fantasies. The bleary saturated colors evoke the era and the area while a surreal quality seeps in...

Full Review | Aug 9, 2024

The fact remains, though, that this is very much a Rose Glass feature, and the filmmaker shows a firm and playful grip on genre storytelling that isn’t afraid to go to some strange, yet captivating places that are impossible not to admire.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 5, 2024

The revenge story, besides being archetypal, is tremendously familiar. The good thing, and what makes it shine, is that it has rarely been brought to the screen in such a special, unbound, and unique way.

Full Review | Aug 1, 2024

An extremely engaging, stylized, and watchable experience that makes excellent use of all of its assets.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 27, 2024

Love Lies Bleeding reaches engrossing levels in its connective thematic tissue, which is the interplay between love and violence.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 23, 2024

The film is immersive and funny, walking up to the chasm of obnoxiousness and looking over the edge and hocking a chunky loog down there without throwing itself in.

Full Review | Jul 22, 2024

An overheated neo-noir with two queer women at the center, Love Lies Bleeding blurs all barriers, resulting in an ecstatic—and sometimes nauseating—vision of liberation.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 19, 2024

Gnarly and hair-raising, yet also intense and thought-provoking, it’ll leave viewers stunned from its intriguing opening to its darkly bizarre climax.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 19, 2024

Glass’ sophomore picture is not as masterfully visceral as Saint Maude, but the rising filmmaker reveals herself as a gifted portrayer of emotional intimacies and wrenching acts of violence.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 12, 2024

I love noir and have forgiven even stupider plots than the one that Glass unleashes here, but I resent the way that she holds herself above the material.

Full Review | Jul 10, 2024

The fact that Love Lies Bleeding made every moment count, is the true strength of the movie.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 5, 2024

Katy O'Brian dominates the screen as Jackie, and Ed Harris is the most revolting that he's ever been.

Full Review | Jul 5, 2024

a film that is as alluring as it is bruising, as ruthless as it is romantic. A provocative and potent Molotov cocktail of brawn, lust, and rage that is as intoxicating as the chartreuse drug injected throughout

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 4, 2024

Punchy neo-noir... deliciously lurid, grainy butch opus... Sweat is viscous, not wet; when eyes meet, eyes match, as in the breath-stopping moment Lou first glimpses Jackie—Stewart watches, breathless, a caught breath, smile, stilled eyes.

Full Review | Original Score: 10/10 | Jul 4, 2024

You can practically smell the sweat and feel the steroid needle prick your skin.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 4, 2024

This is only the second feature for Rose Glass, yet she’s already one of our most exciting new voices. She has an innate understanding of desperation, passion, and the human body, and a fearlessness in depicting each of them.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 2, 2024

Kristen Stewart surprises in this violent and delirious erotic thriller directed by Rose Glass. Great (and sick) fun! [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 1, 2024

Its neo-noir story features solid performances by Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian, as well as some stylized scenes on the visual side, but, as a thriller, its plot often gets lost in a far-fetched horizon. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 23, 2024

In a season when theaters are saturated with formulaic media, it’s a rare thing to have an experience where you believe in something this bonkers... where you’re leaning forward moment to moment with no idea what will happen next.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jun 23, 2024

Glass does well to color things with a nightmarish sheen, but there's also a really fun strain of black humor throughout—mostly on behalf of Lou constantly being put out and made to solve crazy problems for other people.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 21, 2024

Fire of Love (Canada/United States, 2022)

Herzog documentaries are almost always a treat and, although The Fire Within doesn’t quite reach the level of Grizzly Man , it’s close. Fire of Love , however, feels like a fairly traditional non-fiction chronology, complete with unnecessarily cute animated sequences and an obnoxious narration delivered by Miranda July. July’s unhelpful commentary, which runs the gamut from extraneous to redundant, tempted me to turn off the volume. The movie also tries to posit the Kraffts’ tale as a “love story” and, although the two were likely as passionate about one another as they were about volcanos, that aspect of their relationship doesn’t really come across. The footage isn’t there because it doesn’t exist (something acknowledged by the narration). As a result, the movie feels strangely unfocused. I recall reading a contemporaneous review which argued Fire of Love “lacks insight,” and I think that comment nails the central problem with the production. It never delves beneath the surface. It’s straightforward and strangely unsatisfying as a result. The images captured by the Kraffts are on a significantly higher level than the rest of the material.

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2022 K-LOVE Fan Awards: Film & Television Impact Nominees

Posted on Monday, May 16, 2022 by Lindsay Williams

From underdog stories that inspire to informative documentaries that convict, this year’s Film & Television Impact nominees underscore the continued growth of movies and televised series that promote Christian values. Whether the protagonists are winning against all odds, asking tough questions or recalling the early beginnings of a music genre that paved the way for many of the artists celebrated at the K-LOVE Fan Awards, these five offerings demonstrate what a vital role faith plays in the lives of those who dare to believe. Fans get to choose which title will rise to the top of the “Must Watch” list.

Hosted by Matthew West and Tauren Wells , the 2022 K-LOVE Fan Awards will air exclusively on TBN Friday, June 3, 2022, at 8 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. CT / 5 p.m. PT.

Cast your vote for Film & Television Impact now.

American Underdog

The Erwin Brothers’ flick tells the inspiring real-life story of Kurt Warner’s unlikely journey from grocery store clerk to NFL MVP.

RELATED CONTENT: Kurt Warner Isn’t The Only Hero in “American Underdog”

Blue Miracle

Based on a true story, this uplifting Netflix drama follows a guardian and his wards as they join forces with a disillusioned boat captain to compete in a lucrative fishing competition to save their fledgling orphanage.

The Case For Heaven

Together with director Mani Sandoval, former atheist Lee Strobel hosts conversations around the globe in search of the answer to one question: Is there life after death?

RELATED CONTENT: Lee Strobel Argues ‘The Case For Heaven’ in New Documentary

 The Jesus Music

Capturing interviews with more than 100 different artists and industry executives, The Erwin Brothers chronicle the history of Contemporary Christian Music for the first time on the big screen.

RELATED CONTENT: K-LOVE Cover Story: The Jesus Music

Journey with Jesus

This PureFlix film follows in the footsteps of Jesus as viewers experience the sacredness of the Holy Land through the lens of Tony Evans, Chrystal Evans Hurst, Priscilla Shirer and Anthony Evans.

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“ Jackpot! ”  is a trashy and repetitive action comedy about greed and bloodlust set in a world full of people who are proud to be awful. Directed by Paul Feig (“ Spy ”), it's set in near-future Los Angeles, which begins to seem like a statement in itself as the movie goes along. There’s a statewide lottery. For some reason, the state government has decreed that citizens are permitted to hunt and kill winners to try and take their prize money. A handful of rules govern the hunt. One is, only those who’ve purchased a ticket and lost the draw can take part. Another rule is: no guns allowed. A third is: the hunt can only go on for 24 hours. If the original winner has survived at the end of that period, they get to keep their winnings.

Other than that, anything goes. Participants can use knives, clubs, broken bottles, bats, chains, rubber hoses, spears, curtain rods, mop handles, and presumably automobiles (though I don’t recall anyone trying to run anyone down deliberately, which seems like a strange omission in retrospect). They can hunt alone or in groups, even very large groups. 

Awkwafina plays the target of the latest hunt, Katie Kim, a former actress who just returned home from many years spent visiting her dying mother in another state. Her dad died a while before. She didn’t have a good relationship with either parent. We get a bit of detail about her personal life to explain why she doesn’t know anything about the California state lottery turning into a murderous manhunt (she’s been spending time with her mom; no, really, that’s the reason) and also why she’s worthy of our sympathy (beyond the fact that, like other past lottery winners, she doesn’t deserve to be hunted like an animal; nobody does). Katie comes into her own winning ticket purely by accident and doesn’t realize she has it until her number comes up during an audition (which she doesn’t get) and everybody starts looking at her like a cartoon wolf staring at a lamb and imagining lamb chops.

An entire economy seems to have grown up around the lottery hunt, though the movie only zeros in on one part: the security experts who locate winners and offer them protection from harm in exchange for a cut of their fortune. John Cena plays one such security guard, a lovable bruiser named Noel. He used to work for a very successful lottery security company run by a snotty badass named Louie Lewis ( Simu Liu ). He saves Katie from death after the audition, when everyone in the building, including other actresses and a gymnasium full of karate students, have turned on her. She studied stage fighting but didn’t learn a lot. Her instincts are good, but she lacks the moves to survive. Without Noel, she’d be dead meat. And without Katie, Noel would be just another square-jawed he-man. (He’s got a backstory, of course, which Katie will gradually pry out of him.)

Written by Rob Yescombe , whose prior work was mainly on video games, “Jackpot!” doesn’t make a lick of real-world sense, and it’s not supposed to. It has a video game-like repetitiousness and gradual escalation, leading to a Big Boss showdown. There’s a lot of obviously improvised comedy that sometimes lands but more often feels like somebody filmed the exercises in a comedy performance workshop. It’s all in service of a movie that’s more half-baked goof than full-blown satire.

And it seems committed to not investigating the deeper implications of the scenario it’s presenting, in which the lottery hunt is the logical outgrowth of a society that seems to have completely given up on modeling decent values and has decided instead to monetize the worst human behavior. When Katie rents a tiny room from a website and realizes when she gets there that it doesn’t look anything like the pictures online, the young woman who rents it, appropriately named Shadi ( Ayden Mayeri ), chirps “we used fake photos, because who’s gonna stay here if we don’t?” Early in the movie, Katie sees a hateful stage dad loudly and profanely griping about his young daughter, who just failed an audition. “Sorry for all the bad words,” he tells the kid. “I only curse when your mom’s being a f—--g b—h.” 

Ace character actress Becky Ann Baker gives us a glimpse of what the movie could’ve become in her brief performance as a lady who seems gentle and kind but is anything but. She captures the professional predator’s self-satisfied inward smirk at fooling somebody who trusts them, a marrow-deep rottenness that is expressed through fleeting glimmers in the eyes, and that is visible only to people who know what to look for. 

But with a few exceptions, the movie’s way shallower than its best character moments. We don’t know what the state gets out of letting people hunt lottery winners–as in the “Purge” series, it seems on its face as if the cleanup required the next day would outweigh whatever value the exercise has in collectively permitting a society to let off some steam–but this is frankly not the kind of movie where you are supposed to think anything except, “that was a pretty funny line,” or “that looks like that must’ve hurt” or “cool stunt.”

There are seeds here that could’ve flowered into an audacious action comedy, perhaps in the vein of “Robocop” or “ The Running Man ” or “Battle Royale.” I kept thinking of that last one throughout “Jackpot!” because, unlike “Jackpot!,” it’s so cynical that it has moved beyond bitterness and into a kind of blase matter-of-factness, and also because it has an actual vision rather than a notion, and the action is imaginatively framed, lit, choreographed, and edited, an area of filmmaking that has never been Feig’s strength or, honestly, one of his main areas of interest (though “Spy” had its kickass moments, such as the kitchen fight ). 

The two stars have good chemistry – they seem to genuinely enjoy being around each other – but there’s nothing in the script that challenges either of them in the way that James Gunn challenged Cena in two genuinely special superhero projects, “ The Suicide Squad ” and “Peacemaker,” or that Lulu Wang challenged Awkwafina in “ The Farewell .” For the most part, this is a lackadaisical project that is an example of the coarsened sensibilities it’s making fun of. As is often the case with improv-driven movies, the outtakes that play during the end credits are more natural and pleasurable than the movie. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Kadalkkaattu: Lame presentation of a beautiful story

It cannot be a period story nor could it have been premised in a contemporary setting by the writer as the backdrop showcases a time span set in the pre-independence era. A segment of the anthology based on M T Vasudevan Nair's selected collection of short stories, the short movie 'Kadalkkaattu' is directed by Rathish Ambat and stars Indrajith, Aparna Balamurali and Ann Augustine in lead roles.

The narrative predominantly follows the environs of an upper-class traditional household in Kerala and the graph of the complicated mental construct of an ambitious middle-aged man named Keshav, portrayed by Indrajit. While Aparna Balamurali essays the role of his pregnant wife Bharathi, Thennal Abhilash plays their 10-year-something daughter Babymol. Ann Augustine dons the role of Margaret, Keshav's lover.

Lokanathan's brilliant camera captures the time and ambience, however, could not reproduce the verve and magic that MT's story encompasses. The movie is propelled solely by virtue of the force of the original writing and not by the visual representation. The mellifluous prologue to the short movie by Kamal Haasan, describing it as a story that unveils a man's bid to be modern by breaking conventions and unshackling bonds, and then making his final return to his roots, seems quite wasted in the end.

Indrajit and Aparna Balamurali are ace performers on any day. What foiled their chemistry here are the absence of timing and lack of variation, maturity and depth in the delivery of emotions. The debacle in executing the dramatics pulls the film down. In the movie, we see a cocky and arrogant Keshav speaking so awkwardly fast and behaving weird (our memory may slip to Lucifer for a second). But he looks confused when he is silent. He is authoritative and feeble at the same time. Involving unabashedly in promiscuity and he finds his past struggles and experiences of neglect and oppression from his own family as reasons to vindicate it.

But then, what we see is MT's lines detailing the dilemma of a confused man drawn between his intense desires and sense of guilt, which is entirely missing in the pictorial depiction of Keshav. Instead, he funnily resembles a haughty and insipid playboy. Even the dialogues by Aparna modelled on the dialect and slang of a feudal household of ancient Kerala sounds monotonous and artificial. Ann Augustine as Margaret, looks graceful but has nothing much to offer. The black-and-white treatment of mores by juxtaposing contrasting sequences, make the drama shallow and repelling. Among performers, the only saving grace is Thennal Abhilash as Babymol whose looks and speech seem natural.

The music by Rahul Raj is compelling but never rises beyond a certain level. The only takeaway of the movie is the visual canvas which serves as a vehicle for a revisit to the pre-independent feudal era of Kerala.

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Is this love I feel for Emily in Paris, or just Stockholm syndrome?

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Emily in Paris season 4, Netflix from August 15 ★★★★

Maybe it’s nothing more than Stockholm Syndrome, but I finally feel like this thing between Emily and me just might be the real deal.

Halfway through the fourth season (which is being dropped in two batches of five episodes, with the second tranche coming on September 12), I feel rather like the French people in the show: assailed by the relentless charm of American marketing tyro Emily Cooper (Lily Collins), I at first resisted, then wavered, and now have totally succumbed. I’ve even begun hoping for her to find happiness with the hunky French chef Gabriel (Lucas Bravo). In gallantly Gallic fashion, I swear I can make room in my affections for a third.

Lilly Collins as Emily Cooper, seemingly the first person in Paris ever to master social media. Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

For Emily, though, three is barely enough. Season four opens in the immediate aftermath of last season’s bombshell ending: Gabriel’s on again-off again girlfriend Camille (Camille Razat) having announced at the altar that she can’t marry him because he loves Emily, and Gabriel having told Emily that Camille is pregnant. Of course, Camille neglected to mention that she was actually in love with her Greek artist friend Sofia (Melia Kreiling).

As season four starts, Emily is still trying to convince herself that she loves Alfie (Lucien Laviscount), the miserably cynical Englishman she’d met in a French language class. Then, briefly, she decides she doesn’t want to be with either of these problematic fellows, and suddenly she notices that her adopted city is just choc-a-block full of les Hunks.

Never mind ménages a trois, quatre or cinq. Could our American in Paris be about to tuck in at the all-you-can-eat buffet de l’amour? Hell no. She’s going to have to decide once and for all which of these chaps she really wants.

Though it’s first and foremost a romcom, Emily in Paris has always been about the clash of cultures. A remorselessly upbeat American teaches a bunch of stuck-up Frenchies what you can do with a bit of can-do attitude and a refusal to take no for an answer.

This Audrey Hepburn-inspired ensemble is one of the highlights of the season. Credit: STEPHANIE BRANCHU/NETFLIX

And our heroine’s chutzpah is never more evident than in the season opener, when she decides to cook for aspiring Michelin chef Gabriel in his apartment, then displays her even greater ditziness by abandoning the whole thing as soon as she gets a pressing text message.

Of course, the show is also all about the clothes. Emily’s wardrobe budget would eclipse the GDP of many a small nation, and in episode three she dons an outfit inspired by Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady starring a hat that could eclipse a small planet. It is absurd, fabulous and an image you’ll likely never forget.

By the midway point of the season, Camille, her girlfriend, Gabriel, Emily and her rich-kid friend Mindy are all living within metres of each other, in the same hotel building. It’s as if creator Darren Star has taken the best elements of his back catalogue ( Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210 , Sex and the City ), tossed them in a bowl, and served a perfectly seasoned piece of frippery – quelle salade! – that’s bound to keep everyone happy.

Well, those of us who’ve fallen a little in love with our captor, anyway.

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The Big Surprise in Alien: Romulus May Make You Wish for Quick Death by Xenomorph

Don’t say the franchise didn’t warn you..

Like the ever-evolving apex predator at its center, the Alien series owes its survival to its adaptability. Where other long-running franchises sag under the weight of accumulated lore, the Alien movies have largely shaken off such encrustation, leaving each new set of creators—a total of five directors and 16 writers over the course of seven films and 45 years—free to work from the ground up. The results could be almost aggressively fan-unfriendly: Alien 3 summarily killed off two of the three survivors from the massively successful Aliens , as well as the series’ heroine, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley; Alien Resurrection brought her back, 200 years later, as a clone whose DNA had been hybridized with her mortal enemy’s. But even when they weren’t entirely successful, the movies were always distinctive. Drop into the middle of any Alien and you’ll instantly know where you are, even if you don’t want to be there.

Directed by Fede Álvarez, who co-wrote the screenplay with his regular collaborator, Rodo Sayagues, the new Alien: Romulus is the first movie in the series to turn back the clock, both literally and figuratively. Rather than extend past the timeline of the original quartet—or create a new antecedent to it, like Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant — Romulus opts to squeeze in between the first movie and the second, opening with a spaceship salvaging a jagged shard of the Nostromo , the space freighter Ripley detonates at the end of Alien . In other words, it begins with scraps.

A well-behaved franchise hire, Álvarez is an avid student of the previous films, and eager to show what he’s learned. Romulus is strewn with citations, subtle and not-so, drawn from across the series, plot threads and dialogue snippets and chunks of Jerry Goldsmith’s and James Horner’s respective scores. The biggest, and least digested, chunk is the revivification of Ian Holm’s android, as well as Holm himself: Ash was deactivated with prejudice in 1979, and Holm died in 2020, but why let the dead rest when there’s IP to be mined? The one constant in the series, beyond the presence of gleaming death-monsters with acid for blood, is the influence of a massive conglomerate that puts profit ahead of respect for human lives. But Romulus is the first Alien movie to feel like it might be a product of the Weyland­–Yutani corporation itself, as mercilessly efficient as it is inhuman. He learned it by watching you!

The one thing you can say about the Holm clone, here called Rook, is that it’s meant to be monstrous, and the movie’s presentation looks more like a rubber mask brought to life than an uncanny failure at replicating a human form. (Holm is credited with “facial and vocal reference,” while another actor, Daniel Betts, gets credit for the performance.) Rook turns up on an apparently deserted space station where Rain (Cailee Spaeny), a lifelong inhabitant of a mining planet where the sun never shines and corporate servitude never ends, has come to steal a cryogenic pod that would allow her to escape to friendlier climes. She’s accompanied by a group of similarly desperate friends, mostly interchangeable—and, thanks to a muddy sound mix, sometimes unintelligible—but they’re just there to give the aliens fresh meat to grind until we get down to the characters we actually care about.

Indeed, while the Alien series has taken on grand ideas, all the way down to the meaning of life itself, at heart these are slasher movies in space. And it’s almost inevitable that slasher franchises end up falling in love with their killers. With no drive to do anything other than eliminate other species and propagate their own, the xenomorphs are as single-minded as any ax-wielding boogeyman; in Alien , Ash admiringly calls the monster that has wiped out most of his ship’s human crew a “perfect organism.” By Covenant , which treated the likely death of thousands of human colonists as a climactic punchline, the series was thoroughly on the xenomorphs’ side. In the Darwinian arena of Hollywood filmmaking, the aliens were the clear victors, the only name above the title the franchise needed.

Romulus adds a few human touches, including a moment where Rain, fleeing the approach of a horde of creepy-crawlies, leaps to close an overhead elevator gate and the 5-foot-1 Spaeny catches nothing but air. But Álvarez often seems blind to the implications of the world he’s created, because he’s just biding time until the next kill. Andy, an android whom Rain has adopted as a surrogate brother, is played by Industry ’s David Jonsson, the only Black actor in the core cast, which already makes the fact that his only purpose is to take care of Rain a bit hinky. But that’s nothing compared to the moment when Rook expresses the Weyland–Yutani’s corporation’s gratitude to David, because “your model was the backbone of our colonial efforts.” The series’ androids have been villains and tragic heroes, murderous company men and self-sacrificing protectors, but they’ve never been outright slaves, and it’s baffling, at best, to see a movie engage that idea and then drop it for good in the space of a couple of minutes.

It’s not that Romulus has no new ideas, exactly. It’s just that they’re almost entirely procedural. Álvarez is probably the least pretentious director to ever take on an Aliens movie, and he excels at the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of a claustrophobic thriller. (He even manages to shoot in near-darkness without turning the image a dull, washed-out gray, an all but extinct skill in the digital era.) But even if his movie succeeds on its own terms, it’s a little disheartening to see those terms so greatly reduced, and a series that’s enabled so many big reaches settle for what’s already in its grasp. Romulus isn’t a mutation. It’s just inbred.