Huge Disappointment

Rating: 3/10 (2 September 2017)

Unlike some other viewers, I did not feel Prometheus was a bad film to bring the franchise back to life. I thought it did the original trilogy justice. Overall, I have loved all four films leading up to Alien: Covenant. Prometheus did a great job setting up for the sequel and I was pleasantly surprised at the fact that it not only didn't suck but I actually found it was very much in the spirit of the original movie, it had the edge of your seat suspense of the original, and it set up the next film for an interesting exploration of the origins of life and the alien. So, for five years I waited for Alien: Covenant to finally be released with anticipation I have never experienced for another sequel. And then... this pile of $@!7 landed on my Friday evening.
I could not believe how terrible Alien: Covenant actually was. I would have been OK with it just being "meh" but this film fell so flat on its double-jawed face that it was unbelievable that the same person that gave us the gift of four amazing Alien films wrote and directed this film.
I could forgive that the film predictably started with yet another distress signal and the consequent exploratory mission. Everything else was absolutely unforgivable.
While the franchise has had its share of dumb characters, at least the previous films took the time to give their side characters some depth, at least enough so that you actually felt bad when they died. None of the characters in this film were ever developed, other than the androids.
While stupid decisions were made by the previous films' characters, they were somewhat believable considering they had no idea what the alien was capable of. These characters were not even believable as the pioneers selected to represent the human race as explorers tasked with the immensely important mission of colonizing a new world. Oh yes, let's just land on this alien planet and not wear any protective gear whatsoever. Yes, let's just sniff the alien magic mushroom, what could possibly happen? Apparently, going on the first colonization mission planned for a decade and costing who knows how much, requires little to no training on potential alien contagion or any infection prevention protocol training or equipment. Oh and yes, let's then take the guy who just vomited alien infected blood all over everything through the entire /&$@!?; ship. Oh and then let's just open the freaking door after the alien thing has had a chance to be born, but not before that (or you know, maybe quarantine procedures would strictly prohibit opening it at all).
Why does everyone just believe David the android even after seeing all the weird $&!/ he has done in his little lab. "Trust me, even though you saw all the weird experiments I did and I just told you I was playing mad scientist and created the perfect alien life form out of the terrifying virus that just killed half your crew, these alien eggs are perfectly safe, take a look." And so the worst captain of all time just practically sticks his entire head in the alien egg. And then the other android, Walter, just sits there and calmly tells the other one, David, that he can't let him take the alien off the planet like three inches from his face, as if David was not going to attempt to kill him.
The film relied more on gore than suspense, which is a huge deviation from the previous films. Cheap thrills, lots of meaningless action, more suited to a Marvel superhero movie. The character deaths were quick and uneventful and nobody cared because we didn't even know this character existed before they were quickly dispatched, due to the poor character development.
The final twist of the movie, the switcheroo of the bad android and the good android, was so amateurish that, if you had ever watched a movie before, you could see it from a light year away.
Finally, none of the questions raised by Promethius were ever addressed. Such a good setup from Promethius for the sequel with question of the origins of human life and the decision to kill it off and then... nothing! The Engineers are just swiftly killed off upon landing. Great! Because I didn't just spend five years waiting to find out their motives.
Sadly, the entire film was just a huge cliché and other than the fantastic visual effects, its story was that of a B movie. Such a disappointment from the writer and director that gave us arguably the best space thriller to date.