A truly mixed bag

Rating: 5/10 (3 August 2017)

In certain circles, there's a term called "coproeconomics", which basically implies making inherently flawed products with planned ageing, so that you'd be able to sell the same thing, only slightly modified, again and again and again. The progress between iterations might be ever so slight, and the emphasis on quality might eliminate most of those iterations as unnecessary, yet the manufacturer needs its profits, and we need to buy something to feel up-to-date and privileged.
Alien: Covenant, if I'm not mistaken, is the 6th installment of the Alien franchise (if we take Prometheus, which I haven't seen, into account). Still a long way to go to catch up with the Fast'n'Furious production line, yet quite a handful in itself. How come Ridley Scott still has ideas to build new Alien films upon, and the audience keeps going to the theaters to check them out? The answer that seems correct to me is: to make something new, take something you already had, cripple it in some way and then add a speck of something refreshing to make up for it.
Covenant follows this recipe brilliantly when it comes to crippling. It's the umpteenth time we see humans land on a potentially dangerous planet - yet they keep making the same mistakes they oughta tell about at "Space Colonization 101". Still reckless, short-sighted, unable to control their emotions and follow the basic protocols. The equipment follows suit: withstanding extreme overloads, it (in)conveniently breaks exactly when someone's life depends on it. Looks like even in the XXII century the space programs follow the same principles of coproeconomics.
What saves Covenant from being a total failure is that speck of originality that this time took form of Michael Fassbender. It's no big secret that in Covenant his character builds upon his role in Prometheus. But it's _how_ he does it that makes all the difference. The Alien movies always got their scares from the confrontation of humans and those deadly creatures. But this time there's something entirely different that makes this film scary, something borderline diabolical, and it's Fassbender's delivery that gave me most of the creeps this time. Without him, this film would've been completely pointless.
But even Michael's stellar job doesn't remedy the overall predictability of this film. Maybe if he was the only person on board of Covenant, this film might've become another Moon. But the surgical precision of Fassbender's synthetic character is muddied by the mere mortals making their typical mistakes and playing their typical games. Mere mortals including the director: the revelation near the ending could be seen from a mile away, and only made the sloppiness employed to make it happen more apparent. So unfortunate. But fear not: there's the sequel coming, which will surely fix all its predecessor's flaws. Only to add a load of its own ones. So don't forget to reserve a place in lines in front of the movie theaters: the wheel of coproeconomical samsara ain't gonna spin itself.