Spoiler
Alien: Covenant review, oh boy, here we go...
I'll be really impressed if anyone makes it through all of this.
I just got back from my second viewing, wanted to give it another chance before finalizing my opinion.
These are my opinions, my speculations, and my frustrations, I'm just sharing my thoughts here and I don't expect anyone to agree with me. It is worth seeing, and anyone who is interested in it should make up their own mind. If you liked the movie, great! I wish I could.
Alien: Covenant is a bad film.
Not only is it a bad film, it's a bad Alien Prequel, and it's a bad Prometheus Sequel.
It's my least favorite of them all, out of any of the Alien, Predator, or Alien Vs. Predator movies. I like it less than Prometheus.
It brings me no pleasure to say this or have this opinion, anyone who knows me will know I was excited for this movie and wanted it to be great. However, I knew after Prometheus and from some of the rumors I was hearing that my expectations should be measured, so I made sure to keep them as low as I could for the release of an Alien film. It didn't help. Like Prometheus, I watched it again, hoping it would grow on me. It didn't.
I realize this, coming from someone who defends the Alien Vs. Predator movies, won't be a popular assessment. That's OK, it's mine and I'm just sharing it. I'll get to why I think those films, while not as well crafted, served the franchise/s better and had more passion in them.
I'm going to go through the whole plot here. If you just want to see my pros, cons and overall thoughts, skip to the end.
------------------
We start with an intriguing scene where David awakens and meets his creator, Peter Weyland for the first time. There is an interesting back and forth here between creator and creation, and it's clear that this is the theme the movie is going to be focusing on, along with David himself. The scene ends with Weyland, uncomfortable with David's line of questioning, requesting for tea right next to him as a power play. I suppose this is the beginning of David's daddy issues.
Really this movie should have been called David: Covenant.
Skip ahead 10 years after Prometheus and we're with the Covenant, a colonization ship, on its long journey to the planet Origae 6. The ship, its solar sails extended is impacted by a random neutrino burst. Walter awakens the crew, and James Franco's character, Captian Branson remains in his pod. Something is clearly wrong with his pod and before long the inside of it bursts into flames, killing him. This was the first part of the movie I was a bit confused by. You would think, due to rank, Walter would be awakening him first. The pod did not look particularly damaged, and they don't build these things with emergency releases?
In any case, the religious character, Oram, assumes command and is uneasy with his perceptions of the crew judging him.
I enjoyed the scene with the characters repairing the damaged ship, we get some really good views of the Covenant ship, as well as the impressive, practically built and moebius inspired spacesuits. Also, seeing a scene straight from Alien, where they eject their dead crew-member's body out of an airlock and into space was a bit of a treat.
As they are about to depart they receive a transmission. A ghostly image who is singing. Tennessee recognizes the song. I guess John Denver is still pretty well known a century from now? Walter, the android on the ship with the same look of David, is logical, straightforward, and yet subtly compassionate. I like him as a character.
They track the transmission to its source on a nearby planet, much closer than their terraforming destination. Oram decides they should check it out as it could potentially be a better candidate for their colony. This alone would be a bad reason and I'm glad they decided to throw in the "This is a human transmission and we're obligated to investigate" bit. Daniels, our female main character, calls this out as a bad idea.
After descending through the stormy atmosphere to the planet's surface, a scene that had distant vibes of the dropship descent in Aliens, they land on the edge of a lake and begin their trek. They have no protective suits, or procedure for an initial walk-around.
Even the astronauts in Prometheus were not that stupid.
Yes they mention the atmospheric contents but like any new planet landed on, you would think initial pathogen tests would need to be made. Space truckers were more concerned with decontamination and quarantine.
Eventually they come across the crashed ship that Shaw and David used to escape LV-223. I had to admit, their reaction to coming across a ship of potential Alien origin was pretty subdued. We see spores infecting a couple crew members. One puts his damn face in it, pokes it, and notices it release. He doesn't think to tell anyone he might be infected once he starts showing symptoms, a la Holloway in Prometheus. They find the origin of the signal and realize that Shaw and David were aboard the ship. Once two characters get sick they rush their way back to the lander.
Two people make it back first, one infected, one accompanying him. They get to the lander and Karine begs for Farris' help. They go to the medbay, Faris proceeds to lock them in, afraid of an outbreak (even though it wouldn't matter as her face had just been sprayed with blood). Karine realizes something emerging after... hugging a potentially infected guy? She begs Farris to open the door. Farris, in a panic, leaves again, runs to grab a weapon. The Neomorph emerges, I guess it's called the bloodburster for this one. Immediately Karine kicks it back, it viciously attacks her and tears her face up. Farris proceeds to open the door, slip on the bloody floor and shoot the ceiling, crawl back out the door, breaking her foot upon it closing. The bloodburster, the one that was just kicked into the wall a moment earlier proceeds to BREAK THE GLASS on the bulkhead door. Farris shoots around the room in a panic, hitting some tanks and blowing up the lander.
The other bloodburster emerges from the throat of the other victim. I'm not using their names because these two people have not been established as characters, so I really don't care what is happening to them other than seeing the thrilling gore of it. The Neomorph comes back LITERALLY SECONDS LATER, NEARLY FULLY GROWN. They shoot at the Neomorph as it takes off Walter's hand. David comes in and fires a flare, I guess the Neomorphs don't like light too much as they scurry off.
David leads them to the Engineer "Necropolis," which like with the Juggernaut, the group seems awfully calm about. This looks ripped straight out of Rome, as if it's the Vatican itself. We get some Prometheus vibes here, seeing a temple like interior with large stone heads. David explains his backstory and asks a few questions of his own.
It's here where Daniels talks to Walter and says what really should have been the tagline of the film:
"Nothing here makes any sense."
Most of the second act is here. We get some intriguing conversations between Walter and David. They have a strange flute-playing scene together.
"I'll do the fingering."
At one point they walked into a garden that was Ripped straight from the Arnold Böcklin painting "Isle of the Dead." It's here where David reveals that Shaw is dead and that he loved her. Making up a story about how the Juggernaut accidentally deployed its cargo and in the confusion their ship crashed.
We see a flashback where David drops the ships deadly cargo on the Engineer city. Why? Who knows. Some glances of female engineers. This is their home planet but they all live in one city? Why were there gates confining them to the courtyard? They are an advanced space-faring race with no defenses? Lots of questions here that we've been waiting for since the end of Prometheus five years ago. If you were hoping for any satisfying answers you're out of luck. The black goo instantly mummifies them? I suppose this is another instance of it doing whatever the plot calls for.
Back to the main story, in true horror movie fashion, Rosenthal goes off on her own to "freshen up" in a dark Alien city she knows nothing about... sure. Of course the Neomorph creeps in and bites her head off. Scott apparently wants us to really get this as going forward there are three extended shots of her head floating in the water.
During this whole time the crew of the Covenant ship is trying to re-establish contact with the ground crew. There's some good tension between the three bridge crew Members, with Tennessee wanting to risk the Covenant by flying into the storm.
The acting captian, Oram walks in to find the Neomorph munching on Rosenthal's corpse. David has already arrived here and is apparently trying to gain the Neomorph's trust. It strangely stands up straight and walks over to David. Oram has had enough and kills the Neomorph with his assault rifle. David has an emotional outburst upon this, which should be a pretty big red flag to Oram. Oram demands answers and David proceeds to show him his Frankenstein lair.
It's here where we start to gain the realization that David is the creator of the Xenomorphs. Ughhhh, Why Scott? Why did you do this? No one wanted this but you. Even the most praising reviews have been tepid about this. I'll express more of my thoughts after this plot run through. David leads Oram like a lamb to the slaughter into his egg chamber and tells him to put his face in the egg. Like an idiot Oram does this and gets facehugged. Didn't see that one coming.
Again, literally moments later. the Xenomorph is bursting out, only it's not a chestburster. It's a mini-Alien that mimics David in reaching its hands out. OK, what? We go back to Walter and David, after seeing Shaw's dissected and mutated corpse. So much for any satisfying conclusion for that character from Prometheus. David goes a bit meta here and plays the theme from Prometheus on his flute. Walter has figured David out. It's here was have a strange quasi incestuous, homo-erotic kiss between both of Micheal Fassbender's characters, before David attacks Walter and disables him. We can see Walter's skin repairing itself.
The characters begin their escape of the temple and, another is facehugged for about 5 seconds before it being cut off of his face. The instantly full-grown Xenomorph shows up (eat your heart out Paul W. S. Anderson), kills one of them as the facehugged for 5 seconds other guy runs off. After David gets all creepy and rapey on Daniels, Walter shows back up and we then get a straight out of Mortal Kombat fight between the two androids. The fight cuts away.
Tennessee arrives in the cargo lander. And why again does a ship of over two thousand people only have one shuttle? "Walter" (we know who this really is) follows them out. After that it's the Xenomorph. They climb aboard as the Xenomorph also hops on. Here's that fight from the trailer we all saw. After some cat-and-mouse back and forth between Daniels and the Alien, it's instantly crunched by heavy machinery and released into pieces, in the scene after its birth. Perfect Organism indeed.
I really get the impression Scott wasn't too interested in making an Alien film here.
They make it back to the ship. Some nice shots of the Covenant in the stormy clouds around this bit, reminded me of Event Horizon. Daniels repairs "Walter's" face, (I thought his skin was self repairing?). David really had time to cut his hand off and do his hair just right so that she wouldn't recognize him up close?
After they depart, it becomes evident a Xenomorph is on the ship. I guess five seconds is enough for a facehug to be effective. And again, the Xenomorph is an adult, instantly. The other two crew members apparently thought it would be a good time to have sex in the showers, and here we get our infamous shower scene that we expected from the trailers. I was actually looking forward to this, I was hoping it would be long and disturbing, but it ends up being quick, horror-movie trope fare, which some were initially afraid of but I defended before I ended up seeing.
They lead the Xenomorph into the terraforming bay, trap it in a tractor, and attempt to blow it out of the airlock. It leaps back on the ships platform just in time to be impaled and thrust into space. Again, because we haven't seen that before.
After getting in the hypersleep pods, Daniels realizes this movie's BIG TWIST! David is pretending to be Walter. Why didn't he just play along with her conversation? The twist was ridiculous. A real twist would have been if it really had been Walter, who I ended up liking much more than David in the film. Instead, the movie went and did the ultimate cliche.
In the very weird final scene, David pukes up some tiny facehuggers encased in the same material that the human fetuses were. OK... how?
------------------
When I first walked out of the theater, I was feeling a lot like I did after Prometheus, confusion, denial. Upon reading the reviews of those both defending the film and criticizing it, and thinking upon it myself, like with Prometheus, I was left with immense frustration and disappointment.
This movie wasn't an Alien film.
Now when I criticize Scott here, I do so granting him the respect of a skilled artist and visionary. I can't deny he knows how to direct, and create beautiful scenes. But personally, I don't think any artist, or the work of any artist, is above criticism. The Martian restored some of my faith in Scott as a film maker, but that wasn't his story. It only illustrated well that Scott's strength lies in his visuals, and when he tries to get too involved in a story, it comes across as just random, pseudo-philosophical musings.
More and more I see Alien wasn't his masterpiece. It was a perfect storm of a strong director (who was still new so could only have so much creative control), the story of Dan O' Bannon and Ronald Shusset, (Both of those writers having criticisms of the direction of the franchise, including Prometheus), and the artistry of H.R. Giger and Ron Cobb. Without any of these elements, the symphony that was Alien likely wouldn't have been nearly as effective as it was.
The problem now is that Scott seems to want to be the entire symphony. Although he didn't write Prometheus and Covenant, he was deeply involved in the story and writing process. I really feel he was completely uninterested in listening to the criticisms of Prometheus, only doubling and tripling down on its flaws. I find it hard to believe, despite what Scott says on how he "listened to the fans." If he did he would have known that our problems went well beyond not seeing the Alien.
This film doesn't even grant us that much. I'm willing to bet the Alien has less screen time in this than in the original film. And even when it was not on screen in Alien, it was in the background, lurking. The threat of it was ever present. Our space trucker characters were all known to the audience, they planned, failed, made mistakes, but they were still smart. They acted how people would act. Prometheus and Covenant both threw this out the window.
There were zero creature practical effects that I could see, if there were any, they were too quick to notice. CG and Practical effects are both great tools for filmmakers to use but when you use all CGI for convenience sake, in the installment of a franchise that is known for its outstanding legacy with practical creature effects, you do it a tremendous disservice.
Scott seems intent on making David the center of the Alien universe, and I'm gonna call it now. David will be the Space Jockey.
I have to wonder if Scott is just becoming cynical.
Like Prometheus, this film ended on a semi-cliffhanger, teasing us that we will get our answers in the sequel. But we didn't get any answers to the giant questions left at the end of Prometheus, why should I wait another three to five years for the answers to this that will likely again, only raise questions and answer nothing. It is everything wrong with Hollywood these days. This movie is a corporate product, and we are to keep throwing money at it with the fleeting hope that it may satisfy, eventually.
The immense advertising and marketing campaign for Covenant was entirely dishonest.
I get the feeling Fox forced Scott to make this an Alien film, so he threw an Alien in to hardly be seen. Far more interested in Androids and philosophy, and turning everything we know on its head for the sake of doing so.
Essentially, this film ruins the mystery of the Alien in the same way Prometheus ruined the mystery of the Space Jockey. Scott said in interviews "No one bothered to ask about the man in the chair." OF COURSE WE DID, and everyone had their own answer for it. That was the beauty of the Space Jockey. It was the ultimate mystery of the Alien Universe. It's the same for the Xenomorph itself, the joy and beauty is that we didn't know where they were from or why they existed, they just were, because space is weird. Hence the name "Alien."
Is it really an "Alien" if it's just the result of an insane android? And for those who never liked the idea of Cameron's Aliens as bugs, David LITERALLY USES BUGS TO CREATE THE XENOMORPH.
I'm tempted to just agree with Dan O'Bannon when he said about the Alien subsequent films:
"I'd like to see it stop. A horror movie's a fragile thing, and once you've gotten past the original, it isn't scary anymore. So you do a bunch of sequels to a horror movie, all they do is drain any remaining impact out of the original. All of the sequels to for instance Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, same thing; they over-expose the ideas, and when you look at the original, it's not as effective as it would have been if you had just left it alone."
But no, I do think the Alien has lasting power as a franchise, and sometimes you can have too much studio questioning of a director as seemed to be the case with Alien³. But I think Scott is engaged in the Lucas effect here. His reputation is a double edged sword that he's surrounded by yes-men, none of whom would ever have the balls to say "I think this might not be the best idea, Ridley."
For those who were complaining about Neil Blomkamp's Alien film retconning the series, what do you think Scott is doing? Honestly, the franchise is so expansive is convoluted now that I think it would be best to just do away with canon. Have the films be like the Comics, they all tell their own stories in their own universes. Neil even said he didn't want to diminish Alien³ or Resurrection with his film, and yet, Scott wanted to make sure nothing Neil did interfered with his. It seems Scott is intent to keep this franchise to himself, I only hope someone higher at Fox will realize that it may be time to let other creatives have their shots, some who will treat the Xenomorph with the respect it deserves.
While Covenant may have been well crafted from a technical standpoint, what anyone would expect from a Ridley Scott film, it didn't seem to have to passion and respect for the Alien that even the AVP films had. Those knew what they were, they were comic book / video game style movies that added to the mythos, without stepping on the toes of any of the other films.
Covenant takes away from the franchise, making countless expanded universe stories and fan speculations invalid in favor of the worst possible explanation for the origin of the Xenomorph. One so bad, I don't remember any fan thinking of it before Covenant, which is unfortunately, likely exactly why Scott wanted to go for it. The beauty of the Alien is in its simplicity and its mystery, that's where its elegance lies. You turn it into a mutant experiment and you've essentially made Alien go full Resident Evil.
Although I was more receptive to the ideas of Spaiths' script for an Alien Prequel, these films have made me realize that the Alien series should not have prequels. They undermine the most important elements of the Xenomorph and Space Jockey, their mystery. That's the kind of mystery that's good. Mystery that is in the background and serves the plot, not mystery that the plot hinges upon. The mystery that we see in Prometheus and Covenant is just lazy storytelling, lazy screenwriting, and misses the point of Alien. You're going to make Prometheus on the premise of exploring the Engineers, and then go nowhere with it? What? Prometheus is essentially pointless now and Alien Covenant was just one giant detour to pick up David and wonder what he'll do next.
My former film teacher put it nicely: Prometheus was a noble failure, Covenant just fails.
Ok, I gotta stop myself, I'm venting now. so here's the TLDR for anyone who just scrolled to the bottom.
PROS:
-Good production design, cool spaceship, suits, and sets.
-Characters were more human and likable than in Prometheus. Really enjoyed Tennessee.
-Gory and brutal
-Interesting conversations with David, although excessive
-The music was a well done throwback to the original, like Predators had.
CONS:
-No satisfying answers to Prometheus
-Poor character development
-People making even less intelligent decisions than in Prometheus
-Completely screwed up lifecycle.
-Almost no Alien, no practical effects, both times it's dispatched quickly by the crew.
-Obsession with android pseudo-philosophy.
-Leaves us waiting for a sequel, again.
-Ruins the mystery of the Xenomorph
-Most predictable twist ever.
-Like Prometheus, seemingly doesn't know what it wants to be.
WHY?:
-Why did David release the the pathogen on the Engineer city?
-Why were the pathogen's effects on the Engineers different than what we saw in Prometheus?
-Why did David kill Shaw?
-How did David create the Xenomorphs?
-Why did the Juggernaut crash?
-Why do the engineers, an advanced space-faring civilization, only live in one city where giant gates trap them in the courtyard?
-If David creates the Xenomorphs, why were they alluded to in multiple murals in Prometheus?
-Still waiting to know why the Engineers wanted to kill us or what those maps in caves were about.
-David couldn't repair the Juggernaut with all his newfound knowledge of the Engineers?
Final Score: 5/10
AVP3, Alien 5, and The Predator can't come soon enough.
Alan Dean Foster has his work cut out for him.
