Alien: Covenant

This was dumb.

The crew of the spaceship, Covenant, is transporting 2,000 colonists to a new solar system, but their journey is interrupted by a solar flash which damages the ship. While making repairs, they pick-up a signal from a previously uncharted planet. Upon locating it and determining it can support human life, the captain (Billy Crudup) makes a spur of the moment decision to chuck aside all the planning that was put into their expedition to make this new planet their colonial destination. He gets some slight push-back about this flippant decision from his second-in-command, "Daniels" (Katherine Waterston who looks eerily like her father), but that seems to be the only complaint.

So, the crew set down on this planet with no real plan, no protective gear, and just start winging it with, of course, disastrous results because this is an "Alien" movie.

The crew, especially the captain, appear to have the intelligence of turnips. They proceed to act like the Scooby-Do gang and/or the begging-to-be-victims characters from the "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" franchises by constantly splitting-up. I groaned every time a character said: "I'll be right back" as he or she walks off alone. And, boy, are they panicky. It's as if they had no training for their jobs whatsoever. Who green-lit this expedition with these fools? (The rampant stupidity of these characters is downright insulting to the audience's intelligence.)

I don't know what's going on with poor Ridley Scott. For him to go forward with this stupid story with all its plot holes that require characters to repeatedly act like irrational fools is sad. The original "Alien" was such a smart movie with believable characters who were intelligent and professional. This is a pale imitation with a recycled plot twist from the original film except grossly embellished. Also, although Ms. Waterston is cute, her Daniels is no "Ellen Ripley."

Most of the other actors didn't resonate at all. Years from now, while they're trying to land new roles and are asked about their previous work they can respond: "Well, I played panicky idiot #3 on 'Alien: Covenant.'"

Alien: Covenant (2017)

** (out of 4)

Sequel to PROMETHEUS and a connection to the ALIEN series, this sci-fi film has a spaceship trying to locate a planet so that the human race can continue. The crew are planning on building a colony but they notice a much closer planet that can hold life. They decide to head there to see what's on it and soon the horror starts.

To put it mildly, ALIEN: COVENANT is a major disappointment. It seems a lot of fans were unhappy with PROMETHEUS because it was more of a thinking man's movie and less of a action/horror/sci-fi film. It seems that this film was in trouble from the start because you have to wonder if there was some sort of debate before hand on what should be done with it. PROMETHEUS was a terrific movie that made you think about a lot of things but sadly this sequel doesn't do that. Instead, it almost seems as the filmmakers were forced to answer a few questions about PROMETHEUS and then they wanted to throw in the action of an ALIEN sequel.

What really shocked me about this movie is the fact that it almost put me to sleep several times. I'm not going to say that the film is a cure for insomnia but at the same time it's deadly slow at times even though there's usually something always going on. As I said, the screenplay doesn't seem to know what the film should do and the majority of the running time is just downright boring. The film starts off with a tragedy yet it's hard to have any emotions for the characters because we're just getting to know them. Another problem is the fact that the characters are all rather bland with the exception of Michael Fassbender's two-part role.

As I said, I thought the characters were rather boring and I'd argue that not many of the performances are all that memorable. Perhaps a longer director's cut will eventually show up but there's really not too much here. Fassbender delivers a fine performance but I can't say I was impressed with the rest of the cast. On a technical level Ridley Scott is a visual genius so all of that stuff looks great. There's some extremely gory scenes of violence, which are very good but the film is just way too uneven to work.

It's like part of the movie wanted to be another thinking man's movie but there's another part that wanted to be a bloody action film. It just doesn't work in the end.

I think people have too high expectation to new movies of famous franchises, and when it doesn't come to their expectation, they just freak out and start giving one out of ten. If you have seen lots of harsh criticism for this movie, I say it's not bad at all. It's still quite entertaining. To be fair, lots of good horror movies are barely above 6 out of ten. So don't avoid it just because people say they hate it. It's true that they throw lots of (probably too many) elements into this movie, which might turn out to be less exciting. However, the ending succeeds in opening up to more stories, which is good. Also, keep in mind that this is not meant to be like the previous alien movies. It has totally different theme. I bet Ridley is a totally different person now. I would be surprised if he makes a new alien movie with similar tone to the older ones. And it's sensible for the old Ridley to explore the "creation" stuffs. I think it's a fairly good sequel to Prometheus. Look, now we have a new franchise directed by Ridley Scott himself, which is some what relates to the alien franchise. That is just great.

In the first 20 minutes I was so happy with Covenant. It felt sharp, atmospheric, there are interesting character situations, emotive moments and infinitely better writing than we had in Prometheus. As it progresses, this feeling continues - thankfully, a solid sci-fi film that got it right.

Then Ridley starts to indulge in his convoluted ideas about creation and destruction. Its like switching from 1977 George Lucas to 1999 Lucas. You can almost hear Ridley at a writing meeting saying "this'll be cool, and this, and this, and then this" and the writer saying "uh, is this for the same film or later in the series?" "Yeah just cram it all in, make it happen".

You end up with three different films - a first act like a modern Alien which I loved, a middle act of Prometheus style philosophizing that feels like more Westworld, then a last act of two shoe-horned in action scenes homaging Aliens and Alien 3 respectively. Except there is no satisfaction at all, because the aliens are rushed, a bit silly, often awkwardly CGI looking, and not even convincing as threats because we don't care about any of it.

By the end I just have no idea what to think. I just think it would have worked much better if the ideas were done justice in their own film, rather than ham-fistedly trying to ram them into an Alien film to try and please fans and make box-office.

When I went into watching Covenant on opening night, I went in with neither excitement nor hesitation but was just curious. I was one of the people who didn't hate Prometheus because I admired the new mythology Ridley Scott was trying to create. However, I could see that it was poorly executed especially when connecting to Alien. Covenant improves on those ideas with better-written characters but in the end mostly fails as a memorable Alien film.

The parts I liked the most surprisingly were the Prometheus tie-ins. The film constantly delves on the ideas of creation, religion and faith without feeling as forced like in Prometheus. From the opening scene of android David's "birth" to the crew of the Covenant being a colony ship carrying couples, the film carries on these philosophical ideas while tying in very well with the origin of the iconic Xenomorph. While it does not explain everything that was left open in Prometheus, it does feel satisfying that Covenant tries to give some answers rather then just leave with questions.

Once again Michael Fassbender proves to be the standout of this film. But this time he shows off double the effort when he plays two androids, the original David and the Covenant's own personal android Walter. David gets to be a lot more fleshed out and we get a better understanding behind his questionable actions. And as Walter, Fassbender displays a more restrained, machine-like personality but still conveying a sense of loyalty to the crew. And seeing the two Fassbender's interact with one with each other were the most compelling scenes in the film even if one scene was unintentionally hilarious. Danny McBride should also be credited for taking on a role more serious then his usual ones in comedy. Billy Crudup also was good as a religious man whose leadership is conflicted with his Christian beliefs. Katherine Waterston did well in the lead role but is not as unique as compared the Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley. And now here is where the film's faults become very present. While the characters are an improvement from Prometheus, the movie's plot forces them to make choices that feel out of character and silly.

Probably my biggest disappointment was the titled creature itself. The Xenomorph does not show up till maybe like 20 minutes towards the end and its presence just feels like a forced afterthought. And I didn't mind the Xenomorph being more cg-heavy when compared to past films but the subtlety of the creature hiding and waiting to pounce from the darkness was gone. With the creature attacking right out in the opening and Ridley Scott showing too much of it on camera, it no longer felt like the intelligent, calculative killing machine I remembered. It became just another dumb generic movie monster. Even the Alien doppelgänger movie that came this year, Life, was a better Alien movie then this actual Alien movie.

The film also has twist ending that leaves a lot of plot holes to examine and is just more annoying and stupid then smart.

In the end Covenant will satisfy those who had problems with Prometheus convoluted mythology with some intriguing sci-fi ideas but if you're looking for a great monster movie then watch the first two Alien films then this one.