I used to be a humongous Ben 10 fan as a kid, constantly obsessing over the now classic cartoon from my childhood. However, it has no bearing whatsoever on my opinions about the live-action TV films because I'm not blinded by pure nostalgia, unlike some people. With that said, I guess it's now time to remove my "rose-tinted glasses" and get serious.
If I'm going to judge this movie on its own merits as a level-headed adult, and not as a mindless fanboy, then I'd have to say the plot is generic and bland, the position of camera-angles and lighting makes the whole thing feel flat, the music is forgettable, some of the cast members do a fairly decent job with their performances (for the most part, anyway), and the technobabble dialogue is standard for this type of schlocky sci-fi script. It's everything an average film needs to be even more mediocre than it already is, which is why most of the time it's such a tedious watch to get though.
Ryan Kelley's portrayal of the titular character himself can be best summed up as being like a less charismatic version of Tom Holland's MCU Spider-Man incarnation. Alex Winter's direction is severely uninspired, so much so that it makes me think about how this film would've turned out if a far-more talented filmmaker like let's say James Gunn or David F. Sandberg were to have directed the project instead, and maybe then it would of had a bit of personality injected into it.
This film also has the same main problem that the previous one had, in which there were no recognisable villains from the show incorporated into either of the films; like Vilgax, Dr. Animo, the Forever Knights... you get the idea. Another glaring issue they both share is that for movies entitled "Ben 10" he never seems to turn into more than like 3 or 4 of his alien heroes. The movie is called "Ben 10", isn't it? ... so why don't they ever show more than a handful of them?!
The only reason for any non-fan to watch this is the special effects sequences which, taken the fact it was produced for television into consideration, manage to hold up even to this day. After all these years, the way the CGI visuals interact with the environment of the real-life filming locations still looks pretty impressive. Almost makes me wonder why a made-for-television movie from over 10 years ago looks more believable than something like the big-screen Aquaman film from 2018, which had a mega budget of $200 million when compared to Alien Swarm's humble $40 million (how embarrassing is that for DC).
In short, Alien Swarm may very well be a marginally better improvement over A Race Against Time (a cringe-fest with awful CGI), but neither one of them is really all that great. So if I had to at least suggest one of them, I think I'd recommend you skip the first one and just go straight for this sequel.
