Alien: Covenant

Nope. Ridley Scott didn't make another Alien, he made another Prometheus. And what didn't work in the first one still doesn't work here, and maybe even more so. The characters are even duller, half of them are practically there just to die, and there's really no personality to speak of. On top of that, Katherine Waterston is an utterly insipid and unimaginative female lead. And unfortunately Ridley has this whole boring bunch babbling, sniffing things on an unknown planet, getting lost, splitting up and dying in such an undignified way that the word "cliché" doesn't even begin to describe it. Scott is still trying to make a movie with transcendence; philosophical, religious and thought-provoking, but again, the whole thing is dull at best and usually laughable, just like the villain David. It doesn't work as a horror film, it doesn't even want to do much, and the whole thing felt like a movie in which the aliens appear more or less only because it can't be called Prometheus 2. What you love about Alien, you don't get here. Because the senile Scott is going head to head with the wall and has probably decided to finish his Prometheus saga despite the fact that nobody really wants it. (05/15/2017)

Let’s not get stuck in the past. A classic will live forever, in “lonely perfection” as David would call its place in history. And now, after thirty years, it’s time to try a new take on the premise – simple but effective, fun at the level of a contemporary, not that of groundbreaking films in the sci-fi genre. I enjoyed Alien: Covenant because it’s a hardcore sci-fi horror flick with fantastic esthetics, breathtaking locations and music that (finally) references the atmospheric scores by Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner. I enjoyed the escalating thrilling scenes (the first scene showing the return to Lander that takes as much as ten minutes ranks among the best in the whole series), and the nicely designed situations in which characters are killed off in accordance with the genre rules. Before the characters get out of one mess, the viewer already knows about another that will make everything even worse for them. Not to mention the healthy dose of blood and brutality. SPOILER ALERT: The script explains the origin of Giger’s creatures and I find this self-destructive notion that the ultimate evil is created by an android created by man rather compelling. Thematically, this is another version of Cameron’s Skynet. The android confrontation gives the Alien universe an interesting new dimension. And the pessimistic ending offers great possibilities for further development in future installments. I look forward to those! (05/16/2017)

A film where someone alternately screams hysterically in confusing scenes and alternately philosophizes about the issues of the space game show quiz in far too clear shots. Everyone behaves so erratically that the Prometheus crew reminds of professors of logic on a trip to the land of the eight-way. After a totally WTF birth scene, I decided that Alien had just died for me. One star for Franco's compression without having to utter a bare sentence on board. That is the right decision. The only one. (05/15/2017)

The creationist line from Prometheus is enhanced with quotes from the original Alien. The crew suffering suicidal tendencies fights against the symptoms of a weird pathogen and then against those ever-popular droolers. Apart from McBride, the crew is eminently forgettable. In, Fassbender dominates in his double role and is certainly one of the most interesting characters of the entire Alien universe. Scott maintains his high standards visually, and the destroyed civilization scenery is incredibly convincing. (05/19/2017)

Someone finally understood the kind of role that viewers would like to see James Franco play. Unfortunately, it involves the only moment when the film allows itself to be concise. Like Prometheus, Alien: Covenant is torn between an effort to provide first-rate fan service through a return to the horror roots of the first Alien (which is referenced through conspicuous allusions) and the ambition to be epic (with captivating shots like those found in Ford’s westerns) and deep-thinking sci-fi along the lines of Stanley Kubrick (to which it comes closest with its minimalist prologue). Following the formula of a mediocre 1980s (i.e. pre-Scream) slasher flick, with characters making the most basic mistakes (climbing and looking where they shouldn’t, often alone rather than in a group, having sex with each other), it is thus impeded by discussions on chance, fate and creation (Mother and various fathers play a role here), which suffer from the same lack of development as the colonisation storyline. The new Alien is paradoxically a good film until an alien appears in it. It works relatively well until the landing on the alien planet, as it offers a number of possibilities for the direction that the narrative could take and for a long time it isn’t clear which one the filmmakers will take. For example, the conflicts between faith and science, between the captain and Daniels (instead of cross around her neck, she wears a bolt, which comes in handy later) start out promisingly, whereas we see an android playing the flute and reciting Shelley in the second half, which, although fascinating thanks to Fassbender, is a somewhat different theme and a slightly different film. Scott is suddenly much more fascinated by the artificial beings and aliens than by the humans with whom we have spent nearly an hour of the film (however, the pairing-off of the characters doesn’t much help the viewer’s emotional involvement, because for a long time it isn’t clear who is sleeping with whom), and he starts to address all of the complex questions of existence by biting off hands and tearing off heads. This smart-looking film thus becomes a goofy (but entertaining) action-horror B-movie with some rather disgusting gore effects, which I didn't entirely care for, especially thanks to the likeable Katherine Waterston (though an android remains the only well-developed character). Though the new Alien is inventively constructed, looks great and offers one very well-made action scene (with an axe), it comes across as half-baked in most respects, as if there wasn’t time and space to flesh out many of the ideas (I consider the inorganically incorporated flashback, which could have been replaced by dialogue, to be not only an example of tremendous screenwriting laziness, but also a sign that the whole thing could have worked better if the film had paid more heed to the point of view of the reminiscing character). 55% (05/16/2017)