Alien: Covenant - Review Thread

I agree with you PG Cooper but I'm not sure if the movie will have the same value as Prometheus did when it came to rewatching.

Prometheus definitely got better with more views for me

So is Alien the new Star Wars prequels?

Alien Resurrection is looking really good right now.

Huh?

Cuz it was pointless. His. His character dies in the first scene of the movie.

Alright, I'm gonna go retro-Sno on this review and I'm not sorry for it. This movie was a fucking trainwreck that has me pondering if it's actually worse than Alien: Resurrection.

When we eagerly anticipate the next film in a franchise, perhaps we are almost always destined to be disappointed. We want the following films to represent what made the original so great while bringing new ideas to the table. When we see a Bond film, we want the particular tropes that we've come to expect but we also hope for the latest installment to bring new ideas to the table and wow us like the original did. James Cameron was able to do just this with Aliens; he took a horror/thriller/sci-fi classic and molded it into one of the best action films ever made while still staying true to the original film's roots, feel, and ideas. Since then this franchise has been unable to reinvent itself. Alien3 is essentially a crappy version of Alien, Alien: Resurrection is essentially a crappy version of Aliens. So when Prometheus came out in 2012 attempting something drastically different from the other four films, it's not surprising that so many were greatly divided on the result. I've only seen it once, but I remember being pretty much in the middle on it. On the one hand I liked that it attempted to shake up the formula and introduce some lore to the franchise, but on the other hand it was filled with mostly forgettable characters and not a whole lot of thrills. Well, the producers and Ridley Scott have heard the bitching and have answered with the most generic, bland, and tedious film of the series with Alien: Covenant. This is a movie that's not only terrible, but also as predictable as any film you'll see all year. Prometheus, whether you liked it or not, at least has to get some credit for attempting something, anything at all, even as misguided as this attempt was. Alien: Covenant is a film that insults its viewers by dumbing everything down in the most unabashed of ways. Here we have a film where we're made to believe that a team of expert scientists, chemists, pilots, etc. think that they should abandon their mission that they've planned for months for simply because they hear a radio signal. A film where all of these characters make awful decisions that make casts of Friday the 13th films look brilliant. A film where contrived plot occurrences are as frequent as the awful alien designs that inhabit this movie. A film where nothing is good, nothing at fucking all.

I have to admit that I was pissed off right from the get-go. Immediately the crew encounters some sort of solar flare or some stupid shit while sleeping and instantly After this awful beginning, Billy Crudup takes over as the Captain and is instantly unlikeable. Oh no, they're grieving instead of working on ship repairs, this is all because I'm religious! What? What the fuck? Again, all of this is just thrown at us. The script takes no time to actually develop anyone, and as a result we literally don't care about a single character in this film. No one is likable, interesting, funny, or unique in any way. All the stock characters are here, and boy do we not give a fuck. It's another example of Ridley Scott delving himself into his visuals, which are one of two saving graces of this film, and not investing anything into the plot. To make matters even more absurd, after encountering a strange radio transmission blaring John Denver, Captain Crudup decides to forgo the mission that they've all planned for and researched on for months in order to travel to a planet that appears similar to Earth in order to investigate this. Yeah, real smart. Only Katherine Waterston's character raises any objection to this, making a good point that perhaps since the ship is carrying two thousand people looking to colonize that they shouldn't jeopardize the mission. And so instead of sending probes down to this planet or even a few people, they send nearly the whole damn crew to a planet that they have no intel on. Another smart move. From here, the film divulges into the most run-of-the-mill Alien film ever. More absurd occurrences happen and people begin to get infected, and we all know how the rest of this soulless shit plays out.

One of the most alarming elements of this film is the complete lack of suspense. I never thought I'd pine for a character by themselves to hear a noise and slowly walk down a long, dark hallway to investigate it until this film. Nope, a person is alone, we hear a familiar sound, they turn around, and then they're dead. So, fucking, lazy. Characters are dispatched in the most unimaginative of ways, not that we care because again all of these characters have no arcs or intrigue to them whatsoever. While the film contains some brilliantly designed set pieces and visuals, none of them are put to use to even generate a capable chase sequence. See how bad this movie is? I'm begging for a fucking chase sequence to shake things up. It's such a frustrating movie because it's so apparent that no original thought went into the film and the screenwriters just wanted to check characters off the list until we arrive to the inevitable last character standing vs. alien showdown. Slasher films have more creativity when it comes to this than a movie that cost over $100 million to make. Again, none of this is helped by all of the characters being complete idiots. "Oh sure, I just discovered a major secret about David so I definitely shouldn't trust him, but hey, he told me to stick my face down an alien egg so sure, why not?" This is paltry screenwriting at its worst, and a total embarrassment that this ended up being what they went with. The climax is also the worst in the series. You think about how iconic the end sequences are for Alien and Aliens, and then you reflect on what they chose to do here and you can't help but feel entirely underwhelmed. With all that money, all that visual effects prowess to flex, it's just another disheartening example of this movie refusing to be interesting or unique. Ridley Scott heard the criticisms that Prometheus wasn't Alien enough, and so he doubled down on the generic bullshit much to our dismay. Perhaps the only positive of the film aside from the visual effects and production design is Michael Fassbender returning as David the android, though in much cartoonier fashion here. It's sad that an android is far more interesting and dynamic than any human character in the film, but that's certainly the case here. Yes, his quest of demonstrating that androids are creators and existential beings is nothing new within the realm of artificial intelligence aspiring to be more, but it's the only theme that even exists in this fucking movie so we gotta latch onto something. This too is poorly executed though, as the screenplay overplays its already pretty obvious had to bring full circle that David and even brings in a completely contrived twist into the mix for more good measure of shit. The ending of the film doesn't shock because how we get there is cheap. While we're supposed to be enthralled by the bleak ending, instead we're just waiting for this awful movie to come to a miserable close.

So basically the things I liked about the film are Michael Fassbender's dual performances (and that kiss will live in infamous stupidity forever) and the film's visuals and production design. That's it. This is not only a bad movie, but it's a preposterous one without any of the fun. It essentially plays out like a Friday the 13th film dressed up in space with a massive budget, and it's just as bad as the worst entries of that series. Yes, it's far from the worst movie I've seen which is why I'm giving it the points I am, but it still doesn't detract from my immense displeasure and outrage and how lazy and generic this film is. Ridley Scott should be ashamed of himself for thinking that this was an acceptable response to Prometheus. Seriously, if that guy hadn't had The Martian we would all be speculating if this awful dreck was the final nail in his directing coffin. This is a movie that expects you not to care about its unlikable stock characters, or their terrible decision making. It's a movie that expects you not to demand anything from it other than pure popcorn thrills, which ironically it completely fails to deliver as well. It's a movie that doesn't even give a half-hearted attempt at expanding on the mythology and mystery of Prometheus, or any of the Alien films for that matter. It's a movie that expects you not to call it out for not having a single original bone in its frail body. This is a movie that I know I never have to see again. I'd only hate it more on repeat viewings. There's nothing that this film offers other than a lesson on why complacency is a terrible thing. Prometheus was a deeply flawed film that still earned merits from me for attempting to be something, anything. Alien: Covenant is the awful piece of fan fiction that you laugh at and remark this will never get made.

A very low 5/10

Hey Sno, tell us how you really feel.

That's true, but it's still ridiculous how he handled everything with David. His character had no instincts for anything and just made completely rash decisions every time. Then again considering the other members of the crew, I guess they had no better options for second in command.

I never saw the suits or helmet thing as dumb in either movie.

Breathable air is the primary concern. A space helmet isnt an assault protection device.

The irony in thinking otherwise I would think should be very clear, in this movie alone. The main reason you want to wear a suit is due to unknown pathogens, the very thing that put everything in the movie in motion. Even with suits on, they would/should all have been placed in quarantine immediately upon returning. Granted, it may have more easily been forgotten if the crew didn't continue to do dumb thing after dumb thing for the entirety of the rest of the movie. That one nitpick was basically just the start of it all. People being unusually dumb is a typical trope in horror movies, but you would think this movie should have been on another level.

But that's thing about directing and writing. A lot of these things you could easily still include so your protagonists don't look like complete idiots and you can still find a way for chaos to ensue. Even if it's as simple as an extra line or two.