Alien: Covenant review
Talking about Alien: Covenant is turning out to be a tough job for me. To talk about Covenant I feel I need to talk a little bit about Prometheus and my opinions on it. I don’t think Prometheus is a terrible movie. I wouldn’t call it a good one, and I can certainly understand why many people regard its existence as an affront to the original Alien. Most of its problems come from a not too great script that’s more than a little too pretentious for its own good, but it’s clear that it’s born from a place of passion. Its existence is an interesting quandary to be sure; seemingly born out of Ridley Scott’s simultaneous desires to revisit the Alien universe and to create a sci-fi narrative to explore themes of creation and humanity’s origins. The problem with this idea is that the Alien universe never exactly needed something like Prometheus. The Alien movies kinda had their own thing going in regards to exploring themes of its own that were equally resonate. Introducing another gigantic storyline and thematic backbone into the overall cannon can feel like a bit too much to swallow. I probably would’ve preferred Prometheus more if it had been more of its own thing and didn’t force itself to be tied into the broader Alien universe. Still, Prometheus had some decent moments going for it, so overall I can take it or leave it.
Anyway, the weirdest part about Alien: Covenant is that I’ve probably come away from it feeling exactly like how I did about Prometheus. It’s odd because if anything Covenant seems to have taken away all the wrong lessons from Prometheus. Covenant doubles down on its connection to the Alien universe; directly exploring the origins of the Xenomorphs, offering a plot that’s incredibly structurally similar to the original Alien film, and not revealing its full connections to Prometheus until the plot is well underway. In other words, Covenant has, unintentionally or not, gone out of its way to remove some of what makes the original Alien so effective; the fact that the alien of the title is so alien. I’m not going to act like the original Alien will be forever besmirched by the existence of Covenant or anything, but it’s a little hard to not feel the comparisons to the Star Wars Prequels. Still, if this is going to end up being the Alien series’s equivalent to the Star Wars prequels, it’s quite a stretch better than any of them. Covenant has a myriad of problems, but also quite a lot of highlights, and I think Sir Ridley Scott has a lot of enthusiasm for the franchise left in him.
Spoilers From Here on Out
One of the strengths Covenant has over Prometheus is that it’s a lot more action driven than its prdecessor. The pacing is far faster and the direction retains a visceral and shocking quality to it. It leans a bit farther into action-horror territory rather than straight horror. That’s probably a turn-off for many, but I’d say it’s worth it. If the original Alien and Prometheus are more akin to slow-paced haunted houses, Covenant is a roller-coaster ride more akin to Aliens. And it’s admittedly quite a ride. If you thought the Alien franchise had lost its ability to shock or create genuine suspense and terror, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The set-pieces are memorable and well-executed, the gore is unflinchingly shocking, and the tension feels earned. As much as I found Covenant a flawed experience at times, I was never once bored with it. Does it have almost the exact same basic structure of every other alien movie? (I.E. follow a distress signal, come to a planet, find a spooky ship with aliens, people die, the hero escapes, uh-oh there’s one alien left, better shove it out the airlock, roll credits.) Yes. Do I even want to talk about that? No.
However this faster pace probably also ends up contributing to Covenant’s greatest flaw as well. The film really skimps out on a lot of character development for the characters we end up following for most of the movie, as well as straight up glossing over a few of the major steps to important plot developments. Case in point, James Franco (of all people) plays the husband of our main character Daniels, and shows up for exactly two scenes in the movie proper. One is where he is burned alive in a space accident during the first ten minutes of the movie, and the other is a video message played a few scene’s later. Now don’t worry, this isn’t just lazy screenwriting to give us a quick excuse to sympathize with the main character… I mean it is, but they’ve actually straight up trimmed scenes out of the movie and released them ahead of time online as little short films and cutsie character profiles and whatnot. Now granted, as annoying as the concept of releasing vital parts of your movie online is to me, it’s not like there aren’t excuses to be made for it. These were released for free online months before the release of the movie, and they are scenes that easily could’ve interrupted the tone pacing of the movie proper if they had been included in the final cut. For me, it didn’t end up bugging me as much because the performances from the cast are strong enough to pick up where the writing can leave off. However, it ends up being very revealing of where the actual priorities of the plot are in the long run.
See, although we spend most of our screen time through the eyes of Katherine Waterson’s character Daniels, it’s clear the real story is going on with Michael Fassbender’s duel performance as synthetic humanoids Walter and returning character from Prometheus David. That’s where the real thematic meat of the movie lies. You have to wait until about the second act to actually get to it, but oh my, does it get there. If you thought this movie was going to dial it back a bit with some of the more pretentious and goofy stuff from Prometheus, prepare to be disappointed, as this movie takes a sharp left-turn into insanity. From here I can only speak subjectively, as I expect what you think of the actual thematic material of Covenant is going to vastly differ from whatever reaction I had. So, in my opinion, it’s pretty goofy, but way too much fun for its own good. I’m thoroughly entertained by the way the series seems to be headed, and am sure I’ll continue to get milage out of it.
So overall, I probably enjoyed Alien: Covenant about as much as Prometheus, but for different reasons. If you’re actively bothered by the Alien prequels and where they’re taking the franchise, I can understand and sympathize. For now I’m enjoying the ride in a guilty-pleasure kind of way, and I’m willing to see where it goes next.
The Media Fire gives this movie a 6/10.
