Review of Alien: Covenant (2017) by Jesse O — 30 Aug 2018

I remember saying, at the time of my Aliens review, that Alien and Aliens (what a creative title for a sequel) were the best one-two punch of any major horror franchise. Look, I love the Evil Dead trilogy as much as the next horror geek, but the original Evil Dead (IN MY OPINION) falls just short of being great.

Evil Dead 2, naturally, is tremendous. But in the case of Alien and Aliens, those are two great movies for completely different reasons. The original was more tense, space horror focusing on tight, claustrophobic spaces and the sequel was a great space marine action flick, while still retaining some of that horror.

I never got to finish Alien 3 when I started watching it, as a result of Hurricane Maria, and, of course, I haven't seen Resurrection. Well, I did, but I was like 9 or 10 years old when I saw it, so I don't really remember that much.

I also have not seen Prometheus, which is a prequel to the original Alien and, of course, this movie. But Prometheus, at least among a lot of fans of the franchise, wasn't exactly crowd-pleasing due to the unanswered questions of its narrative.

I don't blame Ridley Scott and his team for doing something different with Prometheus, but it seemed like that movie was too ambitious to be a true Alien film and too Alien to truly live up to its ambitions.

So it existed in a plane where you didn't satisfy as many people as you would have hoped. Though maybe that was by design, who knows? Maybe they wanted to inspire debates about the significance behind it all.

Regardless, I've always felt that a true prequel changes how you view what's supposed to have come before it. I feel that this is why the Star Wars prequels didn't work, because the end goal was always gonna be the same, Anakin turns into Darth Vader.

It didn't really provide any new insight into this world or anything. The endgame was predictable and, because of that, there was no fun to be gleaned from the movies, at least the two that I saw.

As it relates to Alien: Covenant, however, I do feel that it does change your perspective of the original movie, as you get to see how the xenomorphs came to be at the hands of David, the android (the only real carryover from Prometheus, along with its story elements, of course).

He creates these hybrid creatures, through experiments, as a result of his disappointment in the human race and his desire to destroy them, feeling that, because of their inferiority, they are not worthy of the life they've been given.

The movie is really a debate about creator vs creation, seeing as David's creator (at the beginning of this film) is searching for the answers as to who created him which, as far as I understand it, seems to be the plot of Prometheus.

So the whole movie is steeped in that debate, with David as the creator of the xenomorphs deeming humans, who created him, to be unworthy of their life. I don't know, even though I didn't see Prometheus, part of me feels that this movie did a better job of handling its more ambitious themes while still, essentially, being a true Alien movie.

Before we keep going, I suppose I should say that I did legitimately enjoy this movie. Alien was revolutionary at the time in terms of deep space horror and that's why, most movies within this same genre, feel like they're directly borrowing from Alien's lineage.

Having said that, while this movie is set on land for the majority of it, the same place the crew of Prometheus landed on, at the same time this still doesn't feel all that different than the template Ridley Scott set for this type of movie almost forty years ago.

Of course, you can't rip yourself off, so that's not even what I'm claiming here, I'm just saying that, as far as this subgenre is concerned, this movie offers very little that is new and, quite frankly, I feel that it doesn't need to.

Seeing that it's supposed to be set in the same universe, some familiarity and shared themes are to be expected. As I mentioned, I did end up liking this movie in spite of the fact that it adds nothing new to the franchise or the subgenre.

First of all, the movie has a really strong cast, which is nothing new to this franchise, with the highlight being dual performances by Michael Fassbender as androids David and Walter, the former being the first of his kind and therefore more human-like and Walter the more pragmatic and subservient of the two.

Fassbender is tremendous in this movie Of course, David and Walter looking exactly the same, they do a predictable bit where, after a fight between the two, one of them comes back to the Covenant and you're not exactly sure as to who came back.

I don't now why but, for some reason, this was a little comical to me. I don't really even know why, because there was nothing about it. But it's just sort of used for comedic effect in some movies and shows, so seeing a relatively serious horror movie use that same trope just made me smile a little bit.

Katherine Wasterton is, essentially, the Ripley of this movie but, if I'm being fair to Katherine, I feel that she does a great job in spite of the massive shoes most people will expect her to fill.

She doesn't imitate Sigourney Weaver, but the characters are certainly very similar. But, again, I feel that Katherine adds her own thing and, as I mentioned, I feel that she's great in this movie regardless of all that.

Danny McBride is also a welcome addition to the franchise, because he plays the character completely different than what you expect of him, which is typically a sleazy, detestable ass (and he's great at it, mind).

He's not the comedic relief in the slightest and, surprisingly, I liked his character a lot. It's not like there's much to him when compared to David and Walter, but I do like his character regardless.

Billy Crudup is here as well and, again, he delivers the goods. There's a few more people on the cast here, but those are the ones most noticeable. Let's talk about the horror, shall we? While I do think that, as a whole, they use the xenomorphs properly, I don't think they're attempting to capture the same feeling the original xenomorph created.

Don't get me wrong, the design is still grotesque and, if I came across a xenomorph in real life, I would literally shit my pants. But, of course, I don't think they attempt to recreate that. What the movie does have a lot of is gore and, let me tell you, that the gore is pretty outstanding in this movie.

It's a mix of practical and CG and, surprisingly, it works really well. Most of us are cynics when it comes to substituting strong practical effects for CG, but I think this movie found the perfect balance.

The scripting, while obviously not perfect, is definitely good and it captures the mood and tone of the franchise. Or at least it captures the mood of the better installments in the franchise. The cinematography is strong as well, Ridley Scott has always had an eye for visuals and this movie is no different.

In short, this is just a good, solid horror movie. It's not gonna reinvent the wheel, in any way, but it's a rock solid installment in a, mostly, revered franchise. I think for those of you who were disappointed by Prometheus, because it wasn't Alien enough or because it wasn't ambitious enough, I think this movie finds a strong middle ground.

Though, to me, it's leaning more towards the more traditional Alien movie. That's not a bad thing, trust me, because, and this bears repeating, this is a good horror movie. Nothing more, nothing less.