ALIEN COVENANT is Ridley Scott apologizing for PROMETHEUS without fully making up for it. Scott has gone on record on saying that the fan feedback on PROMETHEUS affected how he approached COVENANT. Before I was incredibly excited to see Scott return to the ALIEN franchise. But with the overall “meh” feeling of PROMETHEUS, and an overabundance of smart people doing really stupid things, along with Ridley Scott having some sub-par movies lately, I was a little worried this would just be another entry into an all but dead franchise from a director who isn’t nearly as good as he once was. Luckily it wasn’t that bad. But it’s not good enough to completely turn me around on it, either.
To sum it up in one sentence, COVENANT feels like it’s trying to capture what made the good entries rather than push the series into a new direction. ALIEN is one of the greatest sci-fi horror films of all time. Then ALIENS was one of the greatest sci-fi action movies of all time. And PROMETHEUS tried to tackle scientific/philosophical questions. From 1 to 2 and to PROMETHEUS, the direction of the series went in a completely new direction. It would have been completely acceptable for COVENANT to take things somewhere different. Instead, Scott tries juggle what made those three entries good. For most of the movie Scott does really well, but he does drop a few balls every so often.
I really liked how the characters were handled. Everyone is unique and has interesting personalities. I enjoyed my time with each character even if I didn’t quite get attached to each one of them. A great touch was making everyone in the movie married couples so when people do die it’s more impactful. I also really liked how not everyone is a scientist. This is a crew where everyone has a different role to play.
This idea also cuts back on my “Smart people doing stupid things” complaints. While some of these people do very stupid things, none of it seems like it was simply because it was for the plot but rather that’s their flaw as a character.
Remember when I said this movie tries to recapture what made previous films great? COVENANT tries to balance the horror of ALIEN, the action of ALIENS, and the philosophical questions of PROMETHEUS. I really like how COVENANT tries to be a smart sci-fi film rather than just be another exciting romp. There’s a lot of this I do enjoy but I feel it ultimately falls flat. Fortunately, the action and horror elements of the films are much better. While Scott’s films have been a bit iffy lately, he’s still great at directing. The horror elements did keep me on edge even if I never really felt truly scared. And the action sequences are really exciting and visually interesting. And If nothing else, COVENANT is beautiful.
For the most part I didn’t mind the use of CGI for this film. A lot of it is done really well, especially when enhancing the environments. Even a lot of the action sequences with the Xenomorph in full lighting, moving around at breakneck speeds, it looks good. It’s actually quite frightening how vicious the creature is and that’s something that couldn’t be done with practical effects. However, there are just as many scenes where the CG look awful as it does look good. Almost like there were 2 different teams working on the effects and one of those teams was understaffed.
For the first two acts of the film I was really diggin’ it. I loved the first act with the crew in space and how it establishes everything. The second act when everything starts going south was also greatly enjoyable and moves so quickly you almost can’t fully appreciate how good some of these bits are. There’s still some faults here and there but nothing really enough to ruin the experience. But the third act became really predictable and the ending almost made me feel cheated. They try to do a twist, I guess, but it’s so poorly hidden that you’d really have to be naive to fall for it. I caught it right away, but about 15 minutes before the reveal I heard a guy behind me sigh in realization of what was really going on. His groan of disappointment wasn’t because he figured it out too easily. But rather he was so invested in the characters that he knew something bad was going to happen. I guess with the series going from the past and heading towards the Alien movie it has to make things happen to lead to that. But even at the end of ALIEN COVENANT, I’m not sure they even know how to line everything up.
If nothing else, ALIEN COVENANT is an exciting sci-fi thriller. Great bits of action and horror balanced with at least an interest in asking greater questions. The series is no longer happy with just being fun movies. They want to be smart. And while I think it’s trying too hard for its own good, at least it’s trying. And most importantly, it wasn’t boring. Well worth the money to see it on the big screen. And I may be grabbing this on Blu-ray after the price drops.
7/10
Review also available HERE
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