In a movie theater, everyone can hear you squirm. Maybe it was the IMAX experience, but “Alien: Romulus” is definitely one of the more visceral entries in the “Alien” anthology.

“Alien: Romulus” was loaded with references to other films in the series, from dialogue to visuals to plot points. While big fans of the series might find it fun, I found it to be a little tiresome.

Having rewatched almost all of the “Alien” films in the last couple years and specifically “Alien: Resurrection” and “Prometheus” in the last couple weeks, I did recognize quite a few of the references and some of them definitely brought a smile to my face. Other than a few moments in the final act, though, nothing in the plot seems entirely original.

The biggest assets of the film are its two leads, Cailee Spaeny as Rain and David Jonsson as her brother/synthetic, Andy. (Side note: Rain says “Andy, are you OK?” so many times and in such a way throughout the film that I got the line “Annie, are you OK?” from Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” stuck in my head as I walked out of the theater.)

Rain and Andy are living on a dangerous mining planet that gets no sunlight, desperate for a way to get out. An opportunity quickly arises when a group of her friends ask Rain and Andy to join them in raiding an abandoned, decommissioned ship for the cryopods they need to make the journey to the planet of their collective and literal dreams.

Of course, nothing goes to plan when they get on board what turns out to be a space station that was home to some scientific experiments gone wrong.

If you haven’t seen any of the “Alien” films or are not a big fan of them, you actually might get some enjoyment out of this instead of getting annoyed at some of the lack of originality. If you are a big fan of the series or the sci-fi horror genre, it is worth checking out.

For a series completionist like me who isn’t as invested in the series as others, “Alien: Romulus” was more-or-less just another entry in the anthology, falling somewhere in the middle behind the first two films and the “Prometheus” sequels (but improvements over “AVP” and the third and fourth films).

Rating: 3/5