Alien: Covenant

A gorgeous film about stupid people doing stupid things.

Alien: Covenant follows the crew of a ship carrying 2,000 colonists to a habitable planet. They are accompanied by an android named Walter (Michael Fassbender). An event causes damage to the ship and humans are awoken, while repairing the ship, they receive a strange signal that entices them to travel to a closer planet.

The humans in the film are expendable and do not represent the emotional throughline of the film. The underpinnings of Covenant and the exploration of humanity is done through the two androids Walter and David (also portrayed by Michael Fassbender) who returns from Prometheus.

The pacing of Covenant is terrible. The last 30 minutes of the film are fantastic: tense, terrifying, action packed and quite a ride. It’s unfortunate that the first parts of the film where we watch the crew repairing the ship is glacial. The mid-section of the movie has some good moments, but it still sags in many parts.

Prometheus and Covenant are prime examples of Ridley Scott needing a strong script. Scott is a master of putting gorgeous visuals onscreen and Covenant is a beautiful looking movie. The quality of Scott’s films depend heavily on the script he works with and both these prequel Alien films had weak scripts.

Not all is horrible though. Michael Fassbender is absolutely fantastic as David and Walter. Scott produces a beautiful film and he also generates a fair amount of tension. The Xenomorph is horrific as usual and the Xenomorph POV shots are rather creative.

Streamed on iTunes.