For the most part, I like Alexandre Aja's movies despite the handful of remakes he did early on in his career. I'm one of those people who still groans at the mention of yet another remake, but I occasionally enjoy them. That includes Aja's remakes even though the most memorable aspect about them tends to be the gore.

When I heard there was going to be a new Aja movie on Netflix, I was looking forward to watching it. I was a little disappointed to discover it wouldn't be a horror movie, but I was still optimistic.

The premise for Oxygen is fairly simple: a woman wakes up in a cryogenic chamber and can't remember who she is or how she got there. She can't open the door and her only contact with the outside world is through phone calls the cryo chamber's built-in, talking computer can make for her. The reason she woke up is because the chamber is running low on oxygen and it's steadily getting lower. The chamber is small and it's a movie meant to feel claustrophobic.

While I never really found myself bored with Oxygen despite the slow pace, it'll probably be a long time before I feel any urge to watch it again. Some of the details the main character learns about herself and the situation she's in are mildly interesting, but by the end, I mostly felt indifferent about the whole thing.

On the subject of Aja and remakes, Oxygen reminded me of Buried, where Ryan Reynolds is buried in a box and his only contact with the outside world is through a cell phone. Does that mean Oxygen is a remake or rip off of Buried? Maybe, but it wouldn't surprise me if other movies had a similar concept before Buried.

Rating: 5/10 4/10. The more I think about this movie, the less I like it.