Horror-yo

The whole thing is cued. You can tell at virtually every hollow of a scene what action follows or what line a character is about to say. All the Alien tropes are made caricature-like versus the usual adult versions of them. It isn't scary at all. It's inconsistent with past episodes of the series, like the strengths of the various Alien creatures. The finale is dull as hell and unimpressive. There's absolutely zero depth in the story here that there was in the previous two. It's a bit more like a Saw movie as the viewer just waits for each member to die off and it's all action, very bad/utterly predictable action, and nothing beyond that. It's one monumental letdown. No mystique, no mystery, no visceral horror or conceptual mind-twister, no redeeming quality.

It felt very promising at the start with the dark gothic styling and the heavy Tim Burtonian atmosphere, and it had the usual bit of a grain of salt (comic relief) to go along with the more sinister scenery on display, which is appreciable; but after that, it's like we're given too much story, way too quickly, and are supposed to digest it all and connect the dots in a snap. It's like the film has too many things it wants to do: impressive visuals, high octane action and frights with a highly theatrical score, a bit of Depp being funny, subplots and dialogue between various characters... and the story (the intrigue) finds itself in there too. It's a bit confusing and hard to follow. Is it a detective story ? Well it seems to be, but then it isn't for a large chunk of it, and then it is again... it's hard to identify the overarching principle here, so to speak. It feels like it's got loads of potential, but comes out in reality feeling rather underwhelming despite the decor and all the efforts put into it. It comes away being a bit flat, when it could've been absolutely striking.