Rain cares for her 'brother' Andy (David Jonsson) a damaged Synthetic her father fixed up who is somewhat childlike and occasionally malfunctions. When she was a child he was a playmate, now he's a dependent.
When a group of her friends tries to recruit her for a less than legal caper to loot a decommissioned Weyland-Yutani installation they've detected while on a supply run in their beaten up mining shuttle she reluctantly agrees. This may be her only ticket out of there.
No good will come of this.
CW: body horror, injury detail, jump scares
Fede Álvarez brings his horror movie sensibilities to the Alien franchise.
This is good. There are no grand themes at play, just straight up tension and peril in an abandoned space station. There's a tiny bit of "what is a person/who is family" with Andy but it ignores any of the loftier themes of Prometheus/Covenant. The Company is bad and they will work Rain and her friends into an early grave unless they grab what they can and run.
Given free reign to use elements from the first two movies Álvarez totally nails the aesthetic. A long time ago somebody in the tabletop RPG circles I frequented described Alien as "ashtrays in space" and this has that. It's CRTs, dirty bulkheads, leaky hydraulics, bad lighting, blocky graphics, grainy SD video, backlit industrial style buttons, warning sirens and cigarettes not touchscreens and slick technology.
Sadly given that playground he also wields the double-edged sword of fanservice a little too eagerly. In about the first scene we've a 'drinking bird' and this sets the tone throughout, right up to recycling classic lines etc. to the extent it's cringe. Just a little less would have been perfect but for me it was way too much, too front and centre.
Aside from this the cast do "horror movie victims" well but the standout is David Jonsson's Andy who is both essential and useless at various points. The whole thing is propelled by "horror movie logic" and so long as you're accepting of that you'll be well entertained.
7/10 recommended but dragged down by the cringe factor. If you're somebody who punches the air when a character says a line from a previous movie for no particular reason then you'll do better than me with it.