There's more than what emerges on the surface

Rating: 9/10 (16 May 2017)

Alien: Covenant suffers from the ambiguous legacy left behind by Prometheus. Whereas the internet opinion discarded Prometheus and its lack of xenomorphs, Covenant minimised the bonds with its previous chapter in favor of more connections with the original Alien film from 1979. This lead to further shared and undeserved criticism: while Prometheus was too far from Alien, Covenant apparently is too close to it, and lacks of explanations as for some crucial questions raised in Prometheus.
My personal view is in favor of both this movie and Prometheus. Covenant brought new cards to the table, despite what the common belief is.
Let's talk about the connections with Prometheus first. There is not much explanation given about the big question from Prometheus, which was the reason that led the Engineers to decide to destroy mankind. At least not openly. I realised after some thoughts that many of those questions people want an answer to were indirectly answered through some small hints. As for quality, I personally think both Covenant and Prometheus are pretty much on the same level, with maybe Covenant being slightly more appreciated by me personally. David, the android from Prometheus, as we already knew, is back. His character has been further developed (partly at the expense of the new Fassbender character, Walter) and deepened.
A theme that was developed in Covenant is that of creation and creationism. The film finally explores an interesting concept not very developed in previous alien films: just like the Engineers would be the creators of humans, humans created androids. This concpet will be further developed through the origins of the Xenomorphs.
The origins of Xenomoprhs are finally unveiled, and the truth is much different from what one might have thought. While Xenomorphs appear for about 20 minutes of the film, there is much insight given to their genesis, something that I didn't expect.
There are numerous subtle connections with Alien and even with Aliens, starting from the aliens text at the beginning, which in this film is identical to the 1979 film (underlining how Covenant is closer to Alien than to Prometheus). What I further enjoyed in the film was the very classical sci-fi tone of the first half hour. Many scenes in that portion of the movie had a strong 2001 vibe to them, with the effects and photography of a modern film. The movie then moved to a more modern approach, all the way to the ending.
The horror side of Covenant wasn't as frightening as the original film. In defense for the film, when they reach the 6th film featuring a Xenomorph, it is quite hard to bring some. fresh frightening concepts, hence I personally won't complain about that. This is so far also the most bloody film in the franchise, and that is certain.
The crew of the USCSS Covenant was far more enjoyable than that of the Prometheus, especially in the characters of Daniels, Walter and Tennessee. They're not Ripley, but they were enough unarrogant so to allow me to root for them (unlike most of the Prometheus crew members, except for the three pilots, Shaw and David).
The outcome of the film is, obviously open, so to leave space for a third film, which can bring some final answers to some questions raised. Despite that, I think the two hours I spent watching Alien: Civenant were definitely well payed back.