Alien: Covenant is a 2017 sci fi horror film. Directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) and starring Michael Fassbender (Frank, Shame), Katherine Waterston (Steve Jobs), Billy Crudup (Watchmen) and Danny McBride (This is the End). The film is a direct sequel to Prometheus (2012) and a prequel to the Alien franchise.
Alien: Covenant picks up ten years after the events of Prometheus as the colonist ship (cleverly titled "Covenant") is forced to wake up it's crew a little earlier due to system malfunctions. Served by ship android Walter (Fassbender), Captain Oram (Crudup) discovers that there is a much more habitable planet much nearer to them than their original destination and decides to take a task force to invesigate (what could possibly go wrong?). Aided from the air by pilot Tennessee (McBride, Oram takes second in command Daniels (Waterston), Walter and others down to the surface where they get a lot more than they bargained for in terms of the planets inhabitants, both alien and artificial.
In 2012 Ridley Scott dissapointed legions of Alien fans across the world by promising a prequel that would reveal the fascinating origins behind the revered Alien franchise. What we actually got was a disjointed, confused mess of a film (albeit visually stunning) that barely resembled the orginal franchise and Scott is nothing if not consistent. Covenent is so clearly a response to the poor reception of Prometheus, you can almost hear Scott off set, as the Xenommorph is eviscerating a crew member, shouting "is this what you want?!". Sadly, the answer is still no. The characters are supremely bland, the plot laughably predictable, the horror about as subtle as a brick and the dialogue howlingly bad. No, people were actually howling with laughter in my screening, and I can't say I blame them.
What really breaks my heart is that the great Michael Fassbender bears the brunt of most of this garbage dialogue and tries to carry it off with a scenery chewing performance as the villainous David, but to no avail, and to think, David the android was one of the highlights of Prometheus. The paint by numbers plot is so formulaic that it is clearly one gigantic MacGuffin to get to the creation of the Xenomorph itself, so these pointless prequels can tie up with the original movies. And for what? In what must be an in joke, one of the characters actually speaks the dialogue "none of this makes any sense" and, from the moment the film opened and I saw Guy Pearce returning as Peter Weyland, I knew nobody had learnt anything from the failure of Prometheus.
I never thought I would say this but Covenant is even worse than Prometheus and, to watch a once great director, now a stubborn old man, trying to recapture the glory of his masterpiece is the real shame here. Covenant is like Alien but without any of the suspense, style or atmosphere and truly shows how out of touch Ridley Scott is with the iconic franchise that he once helped to build. Scott continues to dominate the genre of "visually impressive nonsense" and it now seems that the franchise is doomed to float through unimaginative sci fi hyperspace for good. In space, no one can hear you yawn.
** 2 Stars
What did you think of Alien Covenant? Is Ridley Scott out of touch?
