Alien: Romulus (2024)

This checkbox-ticking exercise dutifully opens on a steampunk spaceship with glitchy 80s tech sailing across dark silent space, has the sleeping pods of a ragtag bunch of mercenaries open, features the curious space soundtrack, has some (but not too much) Weyland-Yutani context, and of course, there are synthetics, stomach eruptions, and women fused to walls, but what keeps it fresh is the teen cast - this is the Alien we know and love presented with a Scream/Final Destination teen-horror sensibility and it is a very effective addition to the canon with lots of terrific heart-stopping and inventive action.

★★★★☆

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Madame Web (2024)

This much maligned Marvel superhero flick isn't so bad if you are not fussed by its relatively small (for superhero movies) budget or by its lack of male muscle and brawn (instead we have female teamwork and clairvoyance), and you need to be able to look past some weird dubbed voice acting that is never explained, but Dakota Johnson, a presence as light as a feather (like her mum in Working Girl, you feel she might blow away in a wind) is captivating as Cassandra Webb, a paramedic experiencing strange things in the lead up to her discovering by movie's end that she is a spider-enhanced superhero. 

★★★☆☆

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