Alien: Covenant

Evie Totty: “It was ok.”

Ok I'm probably being too harsh on this movie. It was exponentially better than Prometheus (Wow that one has a 72% on the Tomatometer) ... but I wasn't on the edge of my seat like I was with Aliens back in 1986. (Note: saw both of them alone)

Now, Aliens is arguably one of the best horror films of all time though (98% on the ol' 'meter) so it's not really fair to compare Covenant to Aliens.

So given that - it was very good. With a running time of two hours and three minutes it seems very short. It starts a bit slow because it's helping you identify with the crew so you care when bad things begin to happen. Right off the bat, something happens in space to a colonization ship to wake up the crew to deal with it... and the captain (played by James Franco) is burned alive in his pod due to a malfunction caused by the event. This ship is comprised of seven couples and his wife is third in command.

Second in command - now Captain - is Billy Crudup who brings up the fact that he feels he's been discriminated against due to his faith. And this has no bearing on anything whatsoever really in my opinion. While they are awake seven years early scans find an Earth-like planet just weeks away. Newly widowed Daniels advises the new Captain to not take the ship to this place that hasn't been scouted yet. He ignores her and they go anyway, taking down a majority of the crew, leaving three behind. McBride and two others.

And then bad things start to happen. And boy does it. When you see that first thing... you know it's on. You just don't know when and where it's going to happen. Or to who.

Michael Fassbender plays a dual role in Covenant - new android Walter and old android David. And we quickly learn the difference between the two.

I was looking forward to seeing Danny McBride in this and he didn't disappoint. Thank god he wasn't the crass guy from Eastbound and Down - just your regular, garden variety of Good 'Ol Boy. You could feel his concern and worry for his wife. Feel his terror.

And before you know it. It's over... with the preview to a sequel.

Problems I had with the film:

The aforementioned needless mention of faith
When they get to the planet... they don't scope it out from space. They just immediately take a ship down. Into a hurricane. Knowing full well communications would be spotty.

I mean come on, who does that? I don't care how advanced tech is - Mother Nature is Mother Nature and a hurricane is still nothing to mess with.

I'm sure I had other issues that I forgot about but those were the ones that stood out.

Bottom line: go see it - it's a good film

− May 23, 2017 • more by Evie • log in or create an account to reply

Scott Hardie: It seems both Prometheus and Covenant have a 72% on the Tomatometer. I wonder where Covenant will shake out once more reviews are tallied up?

Not counting the non-canonical Alien vs. Predator movies, I have seen and (to varying degrees) liked all of the Alien movies to date, even the much-maligned Alien³, which (similarly to Covenant) tried to bring ideas about religion and faith into a franchise that is quite resistant to them. And yet, I have zero interest in Covenant. All of the advertising and all of the reviews to date make it look like a very plain retread of the previous films, especially Prometheus, with smart characters once again making impossibly dumb mistakes because the writers can't think of better ways to set up certain situations. I don't feel like I really need to see the same shrieking aliens tearing through the same dumbass astronauts in the same creepy spaceship settings yet again. Evie, should I go see this despite franchise fatigue? Are there enough new ideas in it to make it worthwhile? − May 23, 2017 • more by Scott

Evie Totty: You are spot on with the 'dumb things'. So many dumb things happened. I was trying to articulate that but I had started with 'how can so many smart people do so many dumb things? Starting with the decision to go to this planet in the first place?' but then I remembered that this was the crew... So not all of them were geniuses.

I have yet to see Alien all the way through - I've seen the entire film however I think seeing it from start to finish would make a difference. I cannot for the life of me find the review I read after I saw it that describes Covenant as a rehashing of Alien - much like how The Force Awakens is a rehashing of A New Hope (except the pace is faster).

I will say that Fassbender as David/Walter was exceptional and if you don't mind pretty much knowing the end of the movie, this article on Vulture is pretty spot on regarding his performance and how well his characters are written: The Spoiler is pretty much in the title and the actual link text here too so hover/click at your own risk

Should you Scott go see it? Probably not given your reply and the infrequency you are able to see films. Wait for Netflix or whatever. − May 26, 2017 • more by Evie

Scott Hardie: Oh, so Covenant is not only dumb, it's basically just a rehash of the original Alien? Yeah, I don't need any more of that. Thanks for the feedback. − May 26, 2017 • more by Scott

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