The original alien egg is still waiting for someone to stick their head in properly

Rating: 6/10 (25 May 2017)

SPOILERS AHEAD
The hype surrounding the release of this movie advertised it as a long-awaited proper return of R.Scott to the Alien franchise, building upon ideas set forth by Prometheus(2012) but also rectifying the prequels shortcomings and bringing the series back to the original look and feel.
Anyone going into the theatre with this in mind will be left disappointed as Alien: Covenant (2017) fails to adequately deliver on any of these things.
While some of the visuals are interesting, hitting the right strings and setting the familiar eerie vibe, the overall impression is greatly watered down by excessive use of (mediocre) CGI steering the movie in typical blockbuster territory. There is no suspense stemming from original and careful use of alien screen time. Instead, they are shown in full CGI glory from the beginning and far too often overstay their welcome, further diminishing their effect on the viewer. In this respect, the movie suffers from the same sort of ailment as some of the recent monster blockbusters such as Kong: Skull Island (2017). The movie could have benefited greatly from putting some effort into using real life special effects whenever possible and showing the aliens sparingly, which was used to such great effect in the original Alien (1979).
The script deserves a special reference as it is constantly asking the viewer to chip in some faith in order to have any chance of immersion in the events unravelling on the screen. Well, as I am no "man of faith" like some of the characters, I couldn't get around the plot offering a series of constant nicks in the rails, threatening to derail the movie and resulting in a fairly bumpy ride. I don't generally approve of people nit picking and bashing a movie because of miniscule flaws. However, this movie starts steering the characters in dubious situations fairly early on and the mind boggling choices some of them make towards the end of the movie start to pop-up like baby aliens on a stranded freighter space ship. There is no point in setting them out but ultimately, the behaviour of the characters undertaking all sorts of high-risk manoeuvres with no objective pressure to do so makes them less believable, interesting or screen worthy, at the same time devaluating the actors efforts. There is a heap of situations where huge continuity gaps exist and it is very hard to keep on without further elaboration.
With regards to the plot, the whole shenanigan with the Engineers that gobbled up Prometheus (2012) is basically thrown away as the premises of the prequel are only used as a continuity vessel to support David/Walter android centred God-plot that is obviously going to take the limelight in what is to come. The Engineers are wasted - quite literally and as a means to elevate the movie plot considering so much was invested in the idea. This is threatening to shrink the aliens from a fear-inducing, mysterious out-of-this- galaxy, question-raising menace to a mere weapon devised by some android in a cave, using methods and tools unbeknownst to anyone.
The android, however, steals the show and the movie is at its best when Fassbender is pulling the strings. This is not really a compliment as it is hard to imagine a machine should reflect more emotion that the rest of the actual human crew of the Covenant, some of which are designated cannon-fodder from the moment you see them on screen. None of the actors are particularly bad but are very limited in what they can do considering the circumstances. Katherine Waterston offers a glimpse of a good Alien female character but ends up somehow misplaced in a movie with this kind of plot.
The aliens are just further differentiated into different "subspecies" at various stages of evolution and their means of procreating are taking increasingly convoluted shapes and timelines that do not really make sense with respect to how they interact with their hosts. Unfortunately, this takes away from their effectiveness and doesn't do them justice.
The directing is at times pretty uninspired and for a few brief moments even feels like a B-grade horror movie. There is an offering of chewed-up clichés with horrible intro such as the instance when an alien can be seen approaching the current hideout for the crew, immediately followed by a shot of a busty female character washing up and moaning miles away from her comrades. She is going to be OK, right? Not only is the alien approach scene in this case entirely unnecessary and (again) reveals the xenomorph moving along CGI-illy, but the entire way the subsequent death scene is filmed is just insulting to watch coming from a seasoned director and could have just been bought on some stock footage web page. It is basically filler and should not be included in a movie like this one. It is an example of one of the biggest shortcomings of the movie and that is utter predictability. The movie is set out in a way that you know exactly when something is going to happen.
Setting the negative aside, it is not a horrible movie, it is just not the one most people wanted. I feel that it might be worse for someone unfamiliar with other alien movies as its plot is fairly inseparable from the previous work but then also better, as they are not invested in the story beforehand.
Unfortunately, R. Scott got wound up elaborating some mixed up grandiose ideas and took effort away from making the movie work on more basic levels resulting with a somewhat generic and uninteresting blockbuster film.