Since It Ends With Us was recently released in theaters, the book adaptation has garnered a lot of attention for the way it was marketed to audiences, as well as the alleged drama that unfolded between the cast and the film’s director. But while a lot of people have opinions about these above topics, what about the movie itself? Well, let’s just say people have a lot of thoughts. Below, we rounded up some of the most opinionated Letterboxd reviews of It Ends With Us:

Note: We provided copies of the reviews underneath the images just in case the text is hard to read. 

“Alien: Romulus” started out at a disadvantage with me because I haven’t liked any of the “Alien” films that came before it. I’m not just talking about the heavily-maligned third and fourth installments from the 90’s, the “Predator” crossovers from the 2000’s, or the uneven Michael Fassbender arc of the 2010’s. I mean that even the “classic” original from 1979 and beloved first sequel from 1986 have never done it for me. I find them to be little more than glorified haunted house movies with one cool creature design and some extra squishy special effects. That isn’t to say that I think they’re terrible, exactly, just not worthy of their pedestals in popular culture. Now “Alien: Romulus” is a movie that I do think is terrible, exactly.

The movie follows new heroine Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her glitchy android “brother” Andy (David Jonsson) as they try to escape a miserable mining planet owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. They get an invite from her friend Tyler (Archie Renaux) to join him on an unsanctioned mission to a floating research station that contains stasis chambers and is set to arrive at a desirable planet in nine years. Also along are Tyler’s pregnant sister Kara (Isabela Merced), his cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Bjorn’s girlfriend Navarro (Aileen Wu).

Of course, things don’t quite go to plan. There isn’t enough fuel to run the stasis chambers, so the team has to look all over the ship for more. Another little snag, as you can probably imagine, is that the ship took an alien known as a Xenomorph onboard and now the ship is infested with everything from big, cumbersome, deadly aliens to smaller, more nimble, but still very deadly aliens. Also, the aliens have acidic bodily fluids that are capable of tearing through the ship itself, not to mention any unfortunate humans. Also, the station is owned by Weyland-Yutani, a company that never misses a chance to endanger humans for its own bottom line – and it wants that precious alien DNA. All of this is explained by the ship’s android science officer, and let’s just say that one of Weyland-Yutani’s cost-cutting measures is recycling android designs.

Since the characters aren’t interesting and the action isn’t exciting, I whiled away the time waiting for cast members to get killed off. There’s a big billboard in Times Square depicting Navarro getting attacked by a face-hugging Xenomorph, she’s a goner for sure. Bjorn is rude to everybody, he’s no doubt toast. Tyler is bland even for this movie, he has “killed off somewhere in the middle” written all over him. Kara exists solely so her pregnancy can be exploited for body horror. This franchise’s affinity for heroines takes away a lot of the suspense from Rain, though Cailee Spaeny is no Sigourney Weaver. The only character whose life or death I couldn’t predict with 99% certainty was Andy, and he arguably doesn’t even have a “life” in the first place.

Walt Disney World used to have an attraction called “Alien Encounter,” unrelated to the “Alien” franchise, but certainly reminiscent of it. Guests would sit strapped in a seat and be “terrorized” by an alien animatronic in the form of wind, water, and sound effects in a darkened room. Disney got complaints that the attraction wasn’t child-friendly, so they made the lighting dim instead of dark, scaled down the intensity, and generally made the whole thing less appealing to thrill-seekers. “Alien: Romulus” reminds me of a later version of that ride. While not devoid of violence by any means, the film can’t properly pull off a thrilling or scary atmosphere to save its life. Nor does it have the dramatic or comedic chops to be an interesting movie on any other level. That was what saved the first two “Alien” movies from being terrible, the human characters were likeable, even if I didn’t like their chances of survival. I think I liked this film’s five human characters less than Paul Reiser’s intentionally-detestable corporate sellout in “Aliens.”

Grade: D

“Alien: Romulus” is rated R for bloody violent content and language. Its running time is 119 minutes.

Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.

Comedian Eric André is speaking out once again about his experiences with racial profiling, this time alleging he was detained in an Australia airport over the weekend.

“It’s one of the many times I’ve been racially profiled at the airport,” he said Sunday in an Instagram video. “This is a message to all Black, brown and Indigenous people traveling through Melbourne today … please be careful.”

The “Eric André Show” and “Bad Trip” comedian, who is Black, said he was stopped at the Melbourne Aiport as he was traveling from New York City to Brisbane, where he is set to shoot an upcoming project. André said he was pulled out of a line in the airport and put in a “special line” where he was “sniffed thoroughly” by a security dog. In addition to the warning, André encouraged his fans to send him more information about the security program that uses the dogs, the officers who allegedly pulled him aside and any leads for discrimination lawyers in Australia.

He also asked anyone who might hire him to perform Down Under in the future to ensure he does not go through the Melbourne Airport without security. “Or have me fly into Brisbane or Sydney directly,” he said.

“I do not feel safe in the Melbourne Airport. I do not want to be humiliated or racially discriminated against anymore at these airports,” he added. “I don’t wanna cut my hair and wear a three-piece suit so I’m treated like a first class citizen.”

He likened the “cockamamie” security dog program to stop-and-frisk policies and claimed that the practice is “unethical” and provides a “less safe” experience for non-white fliers. He also shared a link to a study from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, that questions the effectiveness of drug-detection dogs.

The Melbourne Airport, via Instagram comments, responded to André’s allegations, noting it “does not tolerate racism in any form.” The airport also said it would address the actor’s complaint with the Australian Border Force and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, who oversee “all international arrivals at Melbourne Airport and other Australian international gateways.”

The airport statement added: “We welcome ALL passengers to Melbourne, and we expect everyone to be treated equally.”

Qantas, the Australian airline Andre names in both his video and caption, did not comment but referred inquiries to the Australian Border Force. ABF told The Times on Monday that it confirmed “this was not an ABF detector dog nor an ABF interaction with Mr Eric Andre.”

“Here at the ABF, we are really proud of our diverse workforce, especially at Melbourne Airport and the work they undertake — both human and canine — to keep Australia safe,” the ABF said in a statement.

Representatives for Andre did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

André detailed a similar experience with security at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In October 2022, Andre and fellow comedian Clayton English sued the Clayton County Police Department, alleging that officers stopped, searched and asked English and André about drugs while they were waiting to board their flights in October 2020 and April 2021, respectively. The initial case was dismissed, but the comedians’ legal team filed an appeal in January.

The Emmy-nominated comedian wasn’t the only star to speak out about airport woes this weekend. Singer Bebe Rexha alleged that a worker for Lufthansa airline “threatened” her for being Albanian. She reportedly aired her grievance Saturday in since-expired Instagram stories.

“I thought the security agent was Albanian. I spoke to him in Albanian asking where to get my ticket and now he is banning me from the flight,” she wrote on social media, according to CNN. “I believe this to be a hate crime because I am Albanian.”

The “I’m Good” singer accused the guard of mentally abusing her and alleged that “not one of the women at Lufthansa” intervened. She also urged the German airline to conduct an investigation. Lufthansa said it reached out to the singer and has launched an internal review of the incident.