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While it remains a triumph of visual effects and staggeringly gorgeous cinematography, the story doesn’t hold up at all. The narrative is excessively complicated, full of plot holes and unanswered questions. However, strip all that away and it’s basically two hours of brilliant scientists making dumb decisions and dying violently because of them. Plus, because it’s a prequel, viewers know that those boneheaded choices will ultimately lead to the horrific events that befall Ellen Ripley and her crewmates in the original Alien.
That re-watch should’ve reminded me to approach Covenant with a gigantic amount of skepticism, but the creepy trailers – full of beautifully strange imagery and terrific actors – convinced me to let my guard down. Now I’m mad at myself, because the movie is garbage. Scott does a decent job of hiding that for the first hour, thanks to those aforementioned visuals and performances, but deep down I think I knew the whole time what I was in for. I was just trying to fool myself into believing otherwise.
Taking place a decade or so after the events of Prometheus, this film fits awkwardly in the series’ timeline. Covenant is a part of the overall Alien mythology because we get the first chronological appearance of the classic xenomorph – which technically makes it a prequel. But as the story unfolds, it becomes abundantly clear this is also a direct sequel to Prometheus, with all of the unfortunate baggage that comes along with it. The inelegant juggling of these two narratives makes for a bipolar viewing experience.
The story begins ominously and things only get worse for the characters from there. After an unexpected solar storm strikes, the crew of the spacecraft Covenant wakes up early from their cryosleep. Well, most of them – a mechanical failure keeps one pod from opening and the captain (James Franco, in one of the most jarring cameos I can remember) burns to death.
While assessing what to do next, the new leader (Billy Crudup) and the rest of the team (including Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo and Jussie Smollett), along with a familiar-looking android named Walter (Michael Fassbender), stumble across an old transmission coming from an uncharted planet. Because none of these people has ever seen a horror movie before, they decide to check it out instead of maintaining a course for their original destination.
At first, this new world seems like the perfect place to set up camp. It’s beautiful, the atmosphere is similar to Earth’s and there seems to be enough resources to live there for years to come. But within a few hours, the crew learns why the planet is uninhabitable to everyone except scary killing machines. Well, almost everyone – the crew ultimately meets someone viewers have seen before, and he might be even more dangerous than the aliens.
Let’s start with the positives: even as he approaches 80-years-old, Scott continues to prove he’s got a cinematic eye. There’s not a frame of Covenant that doesn’t look absolutely stunning (thanks to cinematographer Dariusz Wolski). I just wish he’d learn that an intelligent, compelling story is equally important.
Fassbender, who has a much more complicated job this time around, remains incredible. He manages to be warm, funny, sad and terrifying in equal measure as the story progresses. Yes, there are aspects of his performance that are laughable (the last 30 minutes of this movie are downright campy), but I shudder to think how much more terrible they’d be with a less capable actor at the center.
Besides, I have a hard time believing Fassbender’s quirkier choices are unintentional. Much like Jude Law in last week’s forgettable King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Fassbender knows exactly what kind of movie he’s in. He’s a smart guy, so he knows what to bring to narratively unsuccessful scenes to at least make them entertaining.
If Fassbender is the obvious strength of Covenant, then McBride is the surprise MVP. Mostly known for playing idiots with an overinflated sense of self, the actor gets to go full-on action hero here: smart, sympathetic and capable of duking it out with a terrifying space monster. He’s the one element of the film I was happy to see subvert my expectations.
Everyone else is basically a blank slate, despite the screenplay’s (credited to John Logan and Dante Harper) attempt to add depth and shading to them. Even the characters who seem skilled and resourceful turn into morons at the one-hour mark, mainly because a movie like this needs a body count.
It’s not the fault of the actors, however; the halfway point is when everything in Covenant falls apart. Funny enough, that’s also the exact moment the story turns into a full-blown Prometheus sequel. If you think that’s a coincidence, you must be new to movies. That’s when a problematic character (I’m being purposefully vague to avoid spoilers) starts monologuing, delivering pages of exposition and providing ridiculous answers to questions that few, if any, viewers were asking.
As I walked out of the theater, his anguished words kept ringing in my head: “I don’t [care] where the stuff I love comes from! I just love the stuff I love.” Yes, the xenomorph’s origin is interesting in a ridiculous, bonkers way. But it also takes the series out of the sci-fi/horror realm into baffling Lord of the Rings-style fantasy. I don’t want that. At all.
So Scott gets to expand the mythology of his Alien universe, but it’s at the expense of his original film – which is as close to perfect as movies get. As a result, he’s now got his own Prequel Trilogy (well, he will after the next installment comes out in a few years) and David is his version of midichlorians.
Alien: Covenant is rated R for sci-fi violence, bloody images, language and some sexuality/nudity.
Grade: D+
At first, this new world seems like the perfect place to set up camp. It’s beautiful, the atmosphere is similar to Earth’s and there seems to be enough resources to live there for years to come. But within a few hours, the crew learns why the planet is uninhabitable to everyone except scary killing machines. Well, almost everyone – the crew ultimately meets someone viewers have seen before, and he might be even more dangerous than the aliens.
Let’s start with the positives: even as he approaches 80-years-old, Scott continues to prove he’s got a cinematic eye. There’s not a frame of Covenant that doesn’t look absolutely stunning (thanks to cinematographer Dariusz Wolski). I just wish he’d learn that an intelligent, compelling story is equally important.
Fassbender, who has a much more complicated job this time around, remains incredible. He manages to be warm, funny, sad and terrifying in equal measure as the story progresses. Yes, there are aspects of his performance that are laughable (the last 30 minutes of this movie are downright campy), but I shudder to think how much more terrible they’d be with a less capable actor at the center.
Besides, I have a hard time believing Fassbender’s quirkier choices are unintentional. Much like Jude Law in last week’s forgettable King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Fassbender knows exactly what kind of movie he’s in. He’s a smart guy, so he knows what to bring to narratively unsuccessful scenes to at least make them entertaining.
If Fassbender is the obvious strength of Covenant, then McBride is the surprise MVP. Mostly known for playing idiots with an overinflated sense of self, the actor gets to go full-on action hero here: smart, sympathetic and capable of duking it out with a terrifying space monster. He’s the one element of the film I was happy to see subvert my expectations.
Everyone else is basically a blank slate, despite the screenplay’s (credited to John Logan and Dante Harper) attempt to add depth and shading to them. Even the characters who seem skilled and resourceful turn into morons at the one-hour mark, mainly because a movie like this needs a body count.
It’s not the fault of the actors, however; the halfway point is when everything in Covenant falls apart. Funny enough, that’s also the exact moment the story turns into a full-blown Prometheus sequel. If you think that’s a coincidence, you must be new to movies. That’s when a problematic character (I’m being purposefully vague to avoid spoilers) starts monologuing, delivering pages of exposition and providing ridiculous answers to questions that few, if any, viewers were asking.
As I rolled my eyes for the millionth time – it was around then I also heard my friend sitting next to me tell the movie to do something unprintable to itself – something clicked into place. I realized that Prometheus and Covenant remind me of comedian Patton Oswalt’s classic bit about the “Star Wars” prequels, in which he rails against the need to explain story elements that don’t need answers. (Check it out on YouTube if you haven’t heard it.)
As I walked out of the theater, his anguished words kept ringing in my head: “I don’t [care] where the stuff I love comes from! I just love the stuff I love.” Yes, the xenomorph’s origin is interesting in a ridiculous, bonkers way. But it also takes the series out of the sci-fi/horror realm into baffling Lord of the Rings-style fantasy. I don’t want that. At all.
So Scott gets to expand the mythology of his Alien universe, but it’s at the expense of his original film – which is as close to perfect as movies get. As a result, he’s now got his own Prequel Trilogy (well, he will after the next installment comes out in a few years) and David is his version of midichlorians.
Alien: Covenant is rated R for sci-fi violence, bloody images, language and some sexuality/nudity.
Grade: D+
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