Best Alien movie since Aliens

Rating: 7/10 (22 May 2017)

I rate the movie 7/10. The 1 to 3 ratings from some reviewers is pure stupidity. Alien Covenant is a good movie although there is also room for some proportional and fair critique.
Lets start with the overall story. At first there are some obvious similarities with Alien; crew captures a distress signal, deviates from mission, land on a planet, crew members get infected and brought back to the ship etc., but the transition into the second act with the ship blowing up elevates Covenant into something new and fresh.
The second act is clearly the strongest part of the whole film. In it we learn among other things how the eggs in the Xenomorphs life cycle came into existence. This was particularly clever and must be praised. The entire build up for the unfolding of the eggs involves another pre-existing species, only vaguely similar to the final Xenomorph we know. This was a brave decision and apparently not everyone liked this plot twist. I think it fit well into the story though. Not only did it connect to and expanded upon the events that took place in Prometheus but also it was an integral part in the subplot that treat the religious and philosophical questions posed by AI.
For everyone, as myself, who has a special interest in these questions it is gratifying that Ridley wanted to discuss them in somewhat more detail than he did in Prometheus. The dialog between the artificials David and Walter both played by an excellent and quite machine like Michael Fassbender in my opinion constitute the most memorable dialog in the film. David, the supposedly more human like of the two, understands the curiosity humans shows for the origins of their creation. He who himself already has met his own, is disappointed. He let David know "I was not built to serve".
He feels godless and as a life form unable to feel love that specific key of course is missing in the scale in his own creation. His only loyalty is to himself and what the future holds for him. Like a smarter, at least less flamboyant, anti-Christ defying his creator but wanting to be the creator himself, he waltzes away in the ending surrounded by embryos, set out to destroy the inferior humanity. In David, Ridley has created the mother of all bad robots for the future generations.
Regarding the CGI, there are some especially memorable, gritty and well-crafted scenes but mention them would create spoilers. There are enough of them to motivate the horror label but I still have the impression that the Xenomorphs were slightly misused. One main ingredient for the suspense factor in Alien and Aliens were confined spaces. This I believe is not entirely lost in Covenant, but could have been used even more. One of the most irritating moments struck at the end of the movie when they followed the creature via monitors! What an exceptionally bad idea, LOL. How suspenseful is that? When Dallas died in the air shaft in Alien they saved the image of the creature until the very last second, that's why the scene was highly effective. The whole "get rid of it" sequence in the third and final act unfortunately felt rushed.
Visually the movie is flawless, it just amazes me: The ship, the extra ordinary details in the set designs, the mix of real and created landscapes yes even the space suits, are all beautifully designed and put together. The art department involved to create the look and feel of the movie is one talented group of people. Ridley who himself story boards all his movies and in his own right should be considered a skillful conceptual artist also seem to have a special ability for finding the right people to help bring his vision to life. For Alien it was of course Giger himself, art director Roger Christian, concept artists Ron Cobb and Jean Giraud and visual effects ace Brian Johnson. Alien Covenant and Prometheus has seen some strong concept artists such as Dane Hallet, Steve Burg, Evan Shipard and Jeremy Love. Main responsible for the art direction has been Ian Gracie that is perhaps most known for his work on Star Wars movies but his work on Pitch Black deserves a special mention. Production designer Chris Seagers has the master piece Save private Ryan under his belt for which he was nominated.
With the names mentioned it's easy to understand why Covenant ended up being nothing less than visually stunning but with that said lets also not forget that Ridley always has the last word in everything and it is his mind that is the final piece of art in all this.
So what could have been pretty much perfect were in fact not so. Why? Both Alien and Aliens became classics in no small parts thanks to the strong and memorable characters populating the films: Ripley, Dallas, Parker, Ash, Brett, Kane, Lambert, Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Bishop, Newt, Burke, I remember them all! Already after 15 minutes I knew that the casting and the characters would be the weakest point in this movie. It's sad really but no one will remember Oram, Daniels or Tennessee. There are no Yafet Kottos, no Harry Dean Stantons, no Tom Skerritts, no Michael Biehns, Bill Paxtons or Sigourneys in this one. There is however Michael Fassbender and he, as always, is the antithesis to mediocrity. I sure hope he gets the star billing because his character David/Walter is the only one on par with the immortals from the first two movies. Katherine Waterston was a nice try, but not more than that. Decent enough though to keep the interest up for the next one.