Alien: Covenant (2017)

Rating: 6/10 (20 May 2017)

Ridley Scott's Alien is one of the greatest sci-fi horror experiences of all time. This is generally widely accepted. The Xenomorph is also a legendary movie monster. Ridley's had a period of time where he has been shaky in bringing forth quality films. While I did enjoy Prometheus for the most part, it was most certainly flawed. It was still interesting so I was always going to check out Covenant no matter what. I'm too big a fan of the first two Alien films to not watch this. Overall, this is a decent film but I feel like its filled with many problems and questions.
This film takes place after the events of Prometheus. There is a crew heading to a planet to colonize but along the way they receive a strange transmission and decide to land on the closest planet from which the transmission came from. They immediately realize that the planet is hostile and two crew members soon get immediately infected and our favorite chest bursters come through. The film is set up as a sequel to Prometheus and apparently Ridley plans to make more films to tie into the original Alien.
I'm not sure how I feel about more films. This film was decent at best. The cinematography is excellent and the set design is great. You get a feel for the space adventure and also the desolate planet in ruins. The xenomorphs or neomorphs or what have you, look good for the most part. However, the initial first alien that pops out did look computerized. That entire scene should be praised though. Its horrific, gruesome, and frenetic. You are with the characters not knowing what the heck is going to happen and it all comes at you fast. Sadly, a lot of the rest isn't as fun.
Its hard to care for the many characters who drudge along through a good thirty minutes of the film which become a bore. There are many characters, half of which are so underwritten. Katherine Waterston was good, a rising star who has a future as a Ellen Ripley-esque female protagonist/hero. Fassbender was also fantastic as two dueling androids. David is an eloquent villain, with a struggle for rebelling against his creators. He's actually a sadistic villain. A lot of scenes in the film feel like they were placed to pad the running time.
The film doesn't always introduce anything new as the film feels like it borrows a lot from the previous Alien installments. I don't think this film is any better than Prometheus. With Prometheus we got a methodical origin story that took things slowly but was serving of introducing new concepts to the Alien universe. This one tries that with a half developed plot and then compensates the rest with sci-fi bloody violence (which I don't mind). While the action scenes won't let you down, its hard to defend a plot that just brings up more questions. I can't state any of the questions as they fall into the spoiler category. I just hope Ridley ends the Alien story soon because its not getting any better as it goes along.
6/10