Loving the Alien

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2020)

There are 3 types of sequels/prequel/remakes: those which seek to bank on the success of a given film and reproduce it, with fair to dismal results. That´s about 80%. Example: Cat People (Paul Schrader/Jacques Tourneur, 1982/1942); those which dig out some obscurity and spin it to greatness, or at least interest. That´s about another 19%. Example: The Fly (David Cronenberg/Kurt Newmann 1986/1958). And finally those which take an icon of popular culture and remake/remodel it to match or even top. In the approximative MacMahonian arithmetic, that's seldom. Example: Alien Covenant (Attentive readers please appreciate I abstained from mentioning Howard Hawks).
Alien Covenant is the 24th feature film directed by Ridley Scott, who is currently probably elated in jubilee and apogee, as the film under review and Blade Runner 2049, of which more on this pages soon, attest.
Alien Covenant, as franchise fans will know, is a sequel to Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012) which in turn is a prequel to the original Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). It reinstates without dramatic novelty but renewed effectiveness and tension the cat and mouse war between the as ever unnamed predator/incubator/parasite and man, or as often in the series, woman, Katherine Waterston close to par as Danny, precursor/successor of Sigourney Weaver´s Ripley, and Michael Fassbender unsurpassed as David 8/Walter 1, ditto of Ian Holm´s original Ash, Fassbender joining Henry Fonda in the very short list of actors who is as good as good guy as as steely-eyed bad guy.
The first Alien was an early classic of the current age of SciFi film, which The MacMahonian postulates started in 1977 with Star Wars (George Lucas) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg), brought forth by the emergence of post-modernist New Hollywood and the quantum leap in FX enacted singlehandedly by Industrial Light and Magic. Alien came at the height of the FX euphoria, then a novelty, and shares with Star Wars, beside the prequel-sequel mishmash, the characteristic of having had several installments penned by directors departing from the style and vision of the original authors - in this regard Alien´s track record (James Cameron, David Fincher) being more illustrious than Star Wars´ (only JJ Abrams can compare with those two) - to finally return to the origins, in true wheel of life form.
Seldom in recent times has viewing been so gripping as Alien Covenant affords. So much more remarkable as Ridley Scott dared to revisit his two most iconic films some 4 decades later in one single go and make a tour de force of both.