So I finally saw it today, and I can say that for the first 2/3 of the movie, I was mentally declaring that I loved it.
The opening where we get to meet the crew and see their dynamics was really good, and I enjoyed that the movie allowed a slow burn in the beginning. I liked pretty much all of the characters, and overall it was a massive improvement over Prometheus in that regard. I don't know where the complaints about them acting stupid come from; they seemed to act pretty appropriately the whole movie. Even the scene people have talked about with Oram and his "I saw the devil" line followed by looking at the egg didn't play as dumb to me. Katherine Waterston did a good job, but I do feel her character was under-written. Danny McBride was really the main protagonist, and I liked that just fine.
I loved the score, too. The references to Alien set the mood effectively, and the one or two callbacks to Prometheus when Shaw gets mentioned were great. Even David breaking the fourth wall by playing the theme was surprisingly okay given where it falls in the film.
Fassbender absolutely knocked it out of the park. I was worried form the spoilers that David would come across as a mustache twirling villain, but I actually felt bad for him. He's such a broken toy. If he's going to be the anti-hero of this trilogy, I'm excited to see more. His interactions with Walter were as sexually charged as the other reviews have noted, and the contrast between the two was really well played. Was it my imagination, or was David's voice slightly modulated the whole film as a sort of reference to him being broken? I'll have to listen in another viewing.
Regarding Shaw, I just want to clear up some confusion: the prop we saw a picture of where she has biomechanical stuff growing out of her head is absolutely the one we see in the film, just with the eyes closed rather than open. I don't mind the way her character was written out, because there was more references to her and how much David allegedly loved her than I was expecting. I'm very much looking forward to reading the prequel, because I'm morbidly interested in what David's feeling really are/were. Did he actually love her, but he's so messed up he kills her anyway? It's a story I'm glad is getting told, but I agree that the Crossing prologue should have been in the film. David's "the same thing I'm going to do to you" line and the way he kisses Daniels and Walter was also an interesting play on the sexual violence overtones of the alien. He's such a broken malevolent little boy.
I also found the Byron vs. Shelley mix-up to be a really important moment in the film. It's almost as if by pointing out how David got something so fundamental to his action wrong, Scott was exposing the pseudo-philosophy of Prometheus as empty (and I'm someone who enjoyed Prometheus). This film works really well as a dark, mean spirited, and ugly sequel to Prometheus. It throws hope right out the window, so it works well for this universe.
As far as the bombing scene, they were definitely Engineers. In the film, they look a lot more like Engineers than in some of the still pics, and their voices are unmistakably the same as in the deleted scene from Prometheus. And yes, I definitely saw new limbs and such coming out of some of them once they had been hit with the goo, and I'm pretty sure I saw something come out of one of their chests. I'll have to slow it down when it comes out on Blue Ray, though. I wish the scene was longer.
The Neomorphs were a real standout. I love the design, and the effects seemed more polished than the actually xeno (more on that later).I wish we had seen more of them. David's reaction to Oram killing one was actually affecting. You really get the sense that David has love for his creations, and that's hammered home when the xeno is born. That scene is bound to be controversial, but I enjoyed David and his creation bonding.
Also, having seen the film, David definitely created the xenos, and I actually don't hate it. It may ruin the EU and risks shrinking the universe, but as it stands now, this Frankenstein story about a broken android playing god is compelling enough for me to go with where Scott is taking us.
The xeno is where the negatives start coming in. I was hoping people were exaggerating, but yeah, the CG on the alien is kind of bad. It also didn't work at all seeing it out in the open, and I didn't like how easily the first one was dispatched. I agree with Hicks 100%: they should have left the alien out of the movie and just focused on the Neomorphs as their precursor. The last act on the Covenant didn't work, and you tell editing played a role, although I will say the editing didn't feel as obvious as the last act of Prometheus, where it's painfully apparent that stuff is missing.
The dark ending was great, though, and I'm looking forward to where we go from here,
Overall, it's 2/3 of a great movie, and I hope I get to see it in theaters at least one more time.
