Good Horror-Thriller, Great Sci-Fi

Rating: 8/10 (13 May 2017)

Alien: Covenant is effective, both as a straight horror-thriller and as a thought-provoking sci-fi. Ridley Scott has been a master of the latter genre for a long time, and his crew remains at the top of their game. From the typically streamlined and razor-sharp cutting by Pietro Scalia, the ominous and monumental world-building by Chris Seagers, to the somber and textured lensing by Dariusz Wolski, including Jed Kurzel's moody score that seamlessly mixes Jerry Goldsmith's memorable cues with the evocative main track from Prometheus, Covenant looks and sounds as good as any of the best big-budget spectacles to come out of Hollywood in recent years.
Screenwriters John Logan and Dante Harper expand upon the thematic threads ignited by Prometheus - the perceived link between the ability to create life and the status of divinity, the creation turning against its creator -, much to the chagrin of the vocal majority who didn't take those stabs at philosophical substance seriously five years ago, all the while mercilessly obliterating some particular elements of the 2012 installment - the Engineers, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw -, echoing the controversial way that Alien³ was a departure from Aliens, in turn chagrining those select few whose imagination was stimulated by that new mythology of cosmic horror.
Scott conjures up some startling, unsettling sci-fi imagery. Gory death and otherworldly aberration have never looked so devilishly beautiful. The blood-soaked newborn xenomorph "saluting" its indirect designer David is an instantly iconic, bizarrely poignant sight to behold. The genocide of the Engineer civilization in their own homeland at the hands of their creation's creation, epic in scope and in tragedy, doesn't lag far behind. A roller-coaster ride of mounting dread, the pacing becomes relentless after the colonizing expedition reaches the planet, straying away from the exploration-centered, comparatively contemplative narrative drive of Prometheus.
Covenant cements David as the second major leading role of the franchise after Ellen Ripley. Fassbender's Wagner-loving, Shelley- reciting android is a "furious god", vainglorious, treacherous, exceedingly human - truly a child of Peter Weyland. He is bound to become cinema's first and foremost synthetic psychopath. His interaction with personality-impaired look-alike Walter is the kind of unexpected departure in content one wouldn't expect from what is essentially a monster movie. Yet, he is not without his reasons, which means he is not beyond understanding. David and his, say, pathos are the key to unlocking the whole point of this evolving iteration of the saga.
Either one finds it fascinating or not. Those who don't will always have Alien, Aliens and Alien3 at their disposal.
A few artistic decisions deserve to be questioned, however: was it necessary for the xeno to be computer generated? Scott was spot-on on his much-derided assessment that led to Prometheus being its own thing instead of a typical prequel – this is where loyal fans of the quadrilogy might strongly object: the drooling, double-mouthed, phallic-headed beasts simply aren't frightening anymore. The impact they once had has long been diluted by myriad sequels, crossovers, videogames, novelizations. Turning them into athletic digital puppets won't improve the odds of frightening audiences. Why not give more screen time to the neomorph, a savage flesh-eating life- form that, for whatever reason, is more convincing despite being computerized as well? Secondly, it wouldn't be unfair to say that the martial-arts tournament between the two droids belongs to a lesser series. Thirdly, and finally, a little ingenuity could have prevented the demise of the final xeno from feeling derivative of Alien and Aliens, though by now such cliché could be interpreted as self-homage.