Alien: Covenant is the latest installment in the sci-fi franchise, and follows a colony ship that finds a planet with better vital signs than the planet they are heading to.
My relationship with the Alien franchise is semi-interesting and recent. I watched Prometheus on TV a few years ago and thought it was a decent sci-fi thriller. I then watched all five of the Alien films in the three days before seeing Covenant. My quick thoughts on them are: great, a perfect sequel, meh, awful, still a decent sci-fi thriller. Going into Covenant I didn't have as much invested into the franchise as many other people did, and went in with a open mind as to what to expect.
Covenant takes place after Prometheus but is still prior to Alien. The title hints towards the original (the "Alien:" part) and Prometheus (the name of the ship in the title). As with the title, the film feels like a combination of the two films. Half of the film is bloody sci-fi horror and the other half is philosophical scenes of creation and discovery. Surprisingly these parts meld together fairly well.
Prometheus received a lot of hate because of its lack of xenomorphs and the way it handles the lore of the franchise. If this stuff bothered you about Prometheus (which shouldn't be what bothers you about it) you're probably going to be disappointed with Covenant. While the Alien parts are extremely gory and very fun, the rest of the film will bore and annoy you. These parts of the film I enjoyed as they explored similar areas to Prometheus, such as morality and creation, and expanded on the ideas of consciousness and further explored the androids.
The android in the film is once again played by Michael Fassbender, who continues to prove that he is one of the best actors working today. In Walter he is able to portray an android in a completely different way from David. The rest of the cast all do fine (I was pleasantly surprised by Danny McBride) but none of them hold a flute to Fassbender. There is one cast member whose presence I don't understand. They are essentially in the film to give a little bit of exposition before getting killed off. It's not the character I have a problem with, but the actor that portrays them. I've been trying to figure out why they were in the film, and the only conclusion I can come up with was that it was a favour for a friend.
I mentioned that people shouldn't have been annoyed with Prometheus' lack of xenomorphs and what it did to the lore. The problems I had with it were that there were some glaring story and character problems, and the rushed ending. Sadly, Covenant shares most of these problems. There are decisions made by characters that make no sense given their position. There are parts of the film that make you ask "What?". The ending is rushed and feels like Scott is saying that they need to include some xenomorph action to please those that didn't like Prometheus. If a third prequel is made I hope they are able to avoid these problems.
In short: Alien: Covenant is an enjoyable film with many of the same problems as Prometheus.
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