Alien Covenant certainly has the wheels spinning, so I have to at least give it credit for that. Ultimately though, while I thought it was good, I also didn't come away liking it as much as I expected to. Or maybe as much as I wanted to? Perhaps my expectations were too high for what is either the 6th, or 8th, entry in the franchise. I admit that I was all aboard the hype train. It did about as well as it could have from a critical perspective given the genre of film & considering how divisive Prometheus was. If a critic disliked Covenant b/c of it's connections to Prometheus, I simply ignored it, given that I like Prometheus. In fact, I really like Prometheus. Covenant, therefore, should have been a surefire win in my eyes, though sadly that wasn't the case.
Covenant feels trapped between being a true follow-up to Prometheus & a straight forward Alien film. What I enjoyed about Prometheus is that, while it takes place within the same universe & prior to Alien, it's not a true prequel. It plays in the same sandbox but it forged its own path. It asked big questions. The level of ambition was huge, and while the execution didn't always match up, it still resulted in what I believe to be a very good sci-fi movie. We already had 4 Alien movies & 2 AVP movies; I wanted something new & it delivered. I was looking forward to a true follow-up; to Paradise.
Scott has certainly seemed to imply that the reaction to Prometheus helped dictate the course for Covenant. That's too bad. FOX certainly wanted to play-up the Alien elements of the film. Hell, it's right in the title. I dare say not a single piece of mainstream promotion, outside of online prologues, made any reference to the events of Prometheus. Okay, so they showed Shaw's dog tag - big deal. For general audiences that skipped over it & came for the advertised Alien film, I imagine they'll be doing a whole lot of head scratching. Even if this film was intended to bridge the gap between the two, it feels like two different films more than it does one coherent one.
Something that's bothered me recently in big budget films, whether they be prequels or sequels, is mere redundancy. I maintain the relatively unpopular opinion that The Force Awakens is simply okay. A good friend, whom with I saw Covenant last night, downright hates The Force Awakens. Why? It simply borrowed & reused existing plot elements from previous Star Wars films. I had similar issues with Jurassic World, but will admit it has more of an excuse. If the dinosaurs don't escape, you don't have a movie. The barebones plot of any Alien film is bound to be similar. Humans will encounter an alien, or aliens, & said alien(s) will start killing them until it's eventual demise via airlock. Of course, each film gave it their own spin, for better or worse. Even Alien Resurrection, the worst the franchise has to offer, posits new ideas.
Covenant more or less reuses the plot of Alien. The crew is awoken from hypersleep, not because of a transmission, but they don't waste any time coming across one. Also, why does the Covenant have a communications buffer? And although not worthy of critique, why do humans 100 years in the future still listen to John Denver? I also wonder the same as several crew members: how is it that this planet didn't present itself to them prior to this colonization mission? Either way, this whole mishap could have been avoided, but since this crew seems pretty non-committal to their duties onboard, they decide to visit instead of forging onwards. Goodness, I'm getting carried away. The general gist however is: crew responds to transmission, crew becomes infected with Alien, Alien finds way onboard spacecraft, Alien is jettisoned into space. Rinse & repeat.
I also am taken back by how cavalierly this film wipes out the Engineers, via. f'n flashback no less. After devoting an entire film to meeting our maker, David takes it upon himself to nuke their presumed home world. I have to believe that other Engineers are traveling to cosmos, lest we have some real continuity issues with the original Alien. David really is one big continuity error. As interesting a character as he is & as fascinating as his time spent with Walter was, I question the decision to credit him the creation of the Xenomorph. The events of this film contradict the derelict ship in the original Alien.
I'm not even entirely convinced this film needs a Xenomorph other than for brand recognition. The Xeno, as presented in Covenant, is just as scary as in Alien Resurrection, which is to say not scary at all. The Neomorphs on the other hand were badass. This movie peaked, in my own opinion of course, during the ~15 minutes between touching down & being "rescued" by David. The entire backbuster sequence was truly excellent. Still, I don't reckon that it, nor any other part of the movie, matched the horror of the cesarean scene in Prometheus.
Covenant alternates between being an ultra heady sequel to Prometheus and a straight-up horror film. A horror him that uses the worst of the genre's tropes I might add. Did a single person that broke away from the group ever come away unscathed? Regardless, there are aspects of each that I liked, but I can't say they outnumbered the aspects that I took issue with. My biggest gripe of them all has to be the twist ending that it was David, not Walter, that returned to the ship. I use the term twist very liberally. I mean, we all saw it coming, right? Maybe, just maybe, a character in the film would take him & his missing hand at face value, but from the audience's perspective it was entirely obvious. I do wonder why he allowed Daniels & Tennessee to defeat the Xeno, although I suppose the end result is the same. David now has a vessel of colonists at his disposal to play god with.
Arguments about the Space Jockey aside, the events of Prometheus didn't disrupt anything we had seen in Alien or it's sequels. The same cannot be said for Covenant. Prior to Prometheus, I didn't want a prequel akin to what Rogue One eventually gave us; a movie that ends immediately prior to the beginning of the original. I didn't want to see the derelict ship crash on LV-426, but after seeing Covenant I'm doubling back on that desire. If we get a sequel to Covenant, an Alien Awakening if you will, it better bend over backwards to make the appropriate threads meet.
If all of this sounds like I'm being harsh on Alien Covenant, I am. I love this franchise & I want to be able to expect the best from it. I did enjoy this movie, but there were too many missteps to ignore. Perhaps my opinions will alter upon a 2nd viewing with tempered expectations, but as of right now, I must say that I'm at least mildly disappointed.
Alien Covenant: 2.5 out of 4 stars
Ranking:
Alien
Aliens
Alien 3 Assembly Cut
Prometheus
Alien Covenant
Alien vs. Predator
Alien Resurrection
AVP Requiem
