Long time lurker first time poster. Mainly wanted to post because I see a lot of fan reviews that say it's too much Prometheus or not enough Prometheus or that it spoils the Alien mythos, but what I really could have used before I went to see it was a review that specifically highlights how it works where Prometheus fails. So for you people who were desperate to know, as I was, here it is.
I enjoyed a number of things about Prometheus. David is a great character. A lot of it looks gorgeous. There are some interesting ideas. I didn't even mind that the xenos were absent, or that the scientists did stupid things. Alien is full of people doing stupid things.
No, my issue with Prometheus is that it's incredibly poorly structured, and the cast are almost uniformly terrible.
Things happen, but they have no real consequences. They don't follow through to a logical, imaginative end. Charlie is infected, but his infection never goes anywhere. He just looks mottled and then gets flamethrower-ed. Same with Fifield. He simply turns up, as if the writers realised they had to have a scary moment, kills a few people we've never seen before, then gets crushed. And an almost identical action structure happens at the end. The threat is announced (David says the engineer is coming), the threat arrives, the threat is removed in one simple stroke.
It's incredibly bad horror/action/thriller writing.
Covenant is just not on that same level. Nowhere close. It's like comparing a broken moped and a perfectly functioning Ferrari. You might not like the Ferrari. You might actually hate Ferraris! And that's totally cool and understandable. But still the fact remains that one is broken and the other isn't. Covenant isn't broken. Everything in it works, to lesser or greater degrees. Things progress logically. All of the potential of events actually pay off - some only satisfactorily, some spectacularly.
This film is 100% the work of a scriptwriter who knew what they were doing, and a director who mostly understood where he'd gone wrong with Prometheus.
And the same goes for the cast. It's absolutely true that we could use more of them. You don't get to know everyone very well. BUT...everyone is amazing compared to the Prometheus cast. They sell twice as much in half the time. Honestly, I felt more for Tennessee in one two second scene than I did for literally everyone in Prometheus. These characters are brought to life. They're not just going through the motions.
I think it says a lot that I did not give a single fig that
Spoiler
Shaw was killed off screen, but desperately do not want Daniels and Tennessee to be dead if there's a next one due to David's machinations.
Covenant isn't a perfect film by any means. I understand completely why some don't like it. But it is a very well done film, with characters you can enjoy and root for. And tbh, I loved it for that alone. To just have an Alien movie that has been thought through on that level, to get to see a film like that in the cinema at last...it was a joy to me in the same way that Prometheus was devastating. It's not bogged down with nonsense, it's not full of shoehorned ideas from some director or writer who thinks they know better.
It's a proper Alien movie for people who've been waiting for one since Aliens. Or at least, it's as close to that as anything has gotten since.
My order, for reference:
Aliens
Alien
Covenant
Alien 3
Resurrection
Prometheus (I would put Prometheus higher if it didn't have the construction issues I highlighted. I pretty much despise 3/4 but acknowledge that they hang together much better and are largely better acted).
