Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant (2017)

73% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 238 reviews)

Runtime: 122 minutes

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir

From: 20th Century Fox

I saw this movie in its debut last night. I was hoping I'd love it more than Prometheus. I did, but it's not legendary like Alien or Aliens. I try to explain why in a non-spoiler manner below;

Last night I went and saw this movie debut in the United States. As I thought the sound and visuals were the best aspect of Prometheus, it made sense to check this out on a giant screen, which I did, and which was a great idea. I thought that Pro was only average overall due to major problems I had with the story and characters. Here, it does seem more like something in the Alien universe and it does elaborate upon Pro... that doesn't retroactively make Prometheus any better, mind you. At least those two movies were bridged together here. The story is not as ambitious as in Pro, but at least it's not as stupid... regrettably, there are still stupid things that characters do because it's in the script. I say “character stupidity” is a plague that has infected Hollywood for years now but that is another rant for another time.

By now I presume most know what the general plot is: a ship known as the Covenant ends up on a planet with David from Prometheus and things go wrong and a xenomorph shows up. Personally, I enjoyed the characters more here than in Pro, and that went a long way for me in enjoying this movie. Katherine Waterston did a swell job as Not Ellen Ripley and Danny McBride was definitely different than his Kenny Powers guise; like in Pro, Michael Fassbender was the best part of the movie and to our benefit, he plays both a returning David and a new android named Walter. It was especially intriguing seeing Fassbender and Fassbender interacting with each other, and what a relationship those two had. It led to a “that's what she said” sort of comment and whether or not it was supposed to elicit giggles from audiences, that's what happened at my screening.

I understand those who aren't fans of this movie; it may depend on what you thought of Prometheus. Personally, I enjoyed how the movie looked and sounded (even if it does the all-too-common thing of having long stretches being in dark, rainy weather), the characters were unfortunately dumb too often but I could usually rationalize it and overall I thought they were fine and not annoying... the story is not as bold as in Pro but it is still related to Pro and it was still interesting... although maybe some things shouldn't have been skimmed over so quickly. It is a possibility the movie won't work as well for me on future viewings but for now I will say this was enjoyable. That said, I wish Prometheus and this would have been smart movies about big concepts that had plenty of intense moments, whether involving xenomorphs or other things. Those could have been 5 star classics, and flicks worthy of comparison to the legendary Alien and Aliens.

Instead, they go into the pile of a franchise that (and I am not including the AvP travesties) has a lot of variety and thus how they are ranked among fans will be very different. As this will be another summer where I am not at the cineplex too often, I am glad this was not something I was disappointed by, although like I said it could have been amazing.