Scott's Beta Testing Product that is half baked yet ingenious and ambivalent

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2017)

Firstly, I along with millions of alien fans had so much excitement in seeing the xenomorph after the debacle of Alien:4 and the utter uselessness of Alien:3.
The creature returns with menace and surprisingly friendly towards the older Fassbender who is the creator of this genetically modified black gooy virus.
The movie has its scary moments and i think some scenes are scarier than all of the other alien movies combined.
As usual, some of the characters are poorly developed. I wonder what Mr. Franco is doing in 60-70 seconds presence in this movie? Was he picked for a prequel of Covenant itself? only Scott would know.
Overall the movie doesn't match the novelty, grandeur and the mystery of Prometheus. Instead of upping the ante, the key connecting part after Shaw and David take off in the space jockey ship to paradise earth, the entire sequence is crunched in few seconds which is utterly nonsensical and foolish on Scott's part. This sequence alone deserved a full 20 minutes IMHO. Because, it is so magnificent with all the ships floating and the engineer population looking towards a WW2'isque genocide.
The opening and ending scenes of Prometheus were just brilliant and superbly shot. This flick falls flat in both. The later half of the film is mostly dark and the production details cant be appreciated in its entirety.
Dani is no Ripley or even Shaw. She is dull, lifeless and unattractive. The only lead character is the magnificent Fassbender.
I think this flick deserves to be watched at least 2-3 viewings just to appreciate the "methods in madness" of Fassbender and underlying history and hostility towards his creators.
There are still some open questions that are left unanswered in this flick.. Example.. the eggs in alien:1 are older than the eggs in this flick. So, David's genetic experiments are not really breakthroughs in real sense as they are already proved by the engineers back in their days.. (space jockey pre-prometheus).
Also the lead time of airborne virus infecting and alien creature bursting is quite fast. even the facehugger to alien formation is quicker. its unlike the one we saw in alien:1 where it takes hours and hours for Mr Hurt to explode. maybe the engineers knew a different recipe which is a fool proof mass scale worthy.. where as David is still doing experiments and he might reach maturity in the next 2 prequels.. who knows..
My wife actually slept while watching the movie after 2nd half.. so its safe to say that the scare levels are quite scattered and it just doesn't quite match the gradual buildup of the seminal alien:1. I watched the special edition of alien:1 to confirm this :-).
Overall i would say, the xenomorph lovers will be intrigued by some of the scenes in Covenant as they are unique and breathtaking all because of the presence of David, the heartbeat of this beta product.