Alien: Rubicon (2024)

Alien: Rubicon (2024)

An American science-fiction film directed by Adrian Avila (Airplane 2025), who previously directed World Invasion: Alien Attack (2023), based on a screenplay by Glenn Campbell and Tammy Klein.

It’s mad! You know full well when you’re going to be wasting your time and stumbling upon a load of rubbish when you watch a film like this, despite its Action, Sci-fi, Thriller tags! No matter how open-minded and overly optimistic I try to be, it’s just not enough!

It may have an interesting start and some not-too-bad actors, but you can’t escape the ridiculous TV-film feel. As for the special effects, if you don’t see any that set the tone in the opening scene, you’ll need to be patient and wait until the time comes. But you have to be prepared for anything, including having to watch a film where you’ve been had. Because, personally, I’m not capable of stopping a film halfway through. If I want to write a proper review, I have to watch the whole thing. You can’t judge anything objectively if you’ve only seen part of it.

This sort of film always tries to ride the wave of the ‘Alien’ franchise’s success to churn out something reminiscent of it and attract a certain audience.

The film’s cover also brings to mind the comic book Judge Dredd: The Dark Judges. Indeed, there’s a strange resemblance between this monster in close-up and the leader of the four Judges, Death! Whilst at the same time evoking the most popular Alien created by the great and much-missed H. R. Giger. A misleading cover, just this once! Because you don’t see a single one of these creatures in close-up throughout the entire film.

Even though this film is rubbish, it still makes me ponder! After all, who doesn’t dream of seeing a united world? Yes, my question is deliberately silly and naïve, given that we all know these leaders and their little sheep who’d rather have wars all over the world.

This film shows that our planet wouldn’t be ready for a massive alien attack involving armoured, sophisticated spacecraft. When you think back to Independence Day (1996), for example, you’ll clearly remember that the attackers seemed unbeatable and invincible. And yet, there’s always a weakness to be found and heroes to be created who save the world, even if it means the President of the United States has to climb into a fighter jet himself! Yes, because otherwise, you couldn’t make a blockbuster film. Nor can you make a short film showing monsters arriving on Earth and destroying it in five minutes, then that’s it – the end credits roll! What would be the point of that?
Would humans finally unite and stand together if we all had to fight a great common enemy? Only on sunny days, though, because in winter it’s too cold and we’d rather stay under the duvet, by the fire! No, but seriously: is there still hope for humanity? Or is it really all over and lost???

But this film also shows that a huge number of soldiers and weapons would be ready very quickly in an emergency. So, we can deduce that all the tanks, military aircraft and armoured vehicles would be on the front line in no time if a flying saucer were to attack us right now! All these weapons are kept in reserve, but mainly to wage wars over oil and raw materials. Weapons serving a capitalist society!

The president is portrayed as a good and very humane man in this film. I suppose it’s nice to dream in times like these!

The actors are decent, but it’s still a B-movie. There’s no one famous with incredible charisma to be found anywhere.

A rather predictable ending, lots of waffle that disrupts the otherwise good pace of the opening, and CGI that comes across as poor, even though it’s not the worst. On the one hand, this feature film is very childish; on the other, there are also loads of technical terms thrown in to make the film seem pseudo-intellectual.

A movie you can see if you’re not too fussy and can watch anything without regretting not having done something else.