Review of Alien: Covenant (2017) by Philk1970 — 19 May 2017

Just awful. I really do not understand the overall favorable reviews from critics. In "Alien" and "Aliens" you could sink your teeth (ahem) into some very well-drawn and well-acted characters, and invest in them, well before the acid-for-blood hits the fan.

And when it did, it was compelling, dreadful, terrifying and chaotic. Here, nothing. Empty shells staged for some poorly paced bloodletting. Worse yet, this movie is less about the Alien and more about "The Fassbender Show" with seemingly endless heavy-handed dialog on android aspirations.

.. We've been here before, and much more succinctly. The rules of Alien biology clearly established in the first two films are wildly violated here (it is supposed to take days for full alien incubation - but we don't have time for that in this script, so let's just take 5 minutes this go-round), yet one would think Ridley would be loyal to his own invention.

Worse yet, in one unbelievable jump-the-shark moment, Ridley doesn't seem to even be aware that he's channeling "Spaceballs" - at which point I totally checked out. Oh God, and then there's the moment Fassbender's android PLAYS THE THEME FROM PROMETHEUS on a recorder/flute thingie.

Are you serious. And FYI to FX teams, a mix of CGI and a well-crafted on-set in-camera creature would still be superior to the nearly 100% CGI creature FX here. And lastly, zero continuity is set forth between this and the events approximately 15 years later in the original Alien.

OK, ok, the space FX, spaceships & indoor/outdoor settings are all beautifully done, I'll give them that, but on no level do they redeem the pic. Ridley otherwise has an astounding body of work and he could rest on those laurels.

.. Wish he would.