FanBoy review for Alien Covenant, No spoilers!!!

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2017)

Full disclosure the alien franchise is one of my most favorite science fiction franchises of all time. If not, my favorite. I love this franchise so much; I'm willing to say publicly, that I even like Aliens three and four. Nowhere near as much as I love Alien and Aliens, but I still have a respect for them as cannon, and part of this amazing franchise. I even like the Alien versus Predator movies, although I do not consider them to be 100% cannon, but that's a whole other debate. So, onward to my review! I'd like to start with where this movie fits in the Alien universe that Ridley Scott has created. This movie takes place after the events of Prometheus. Not a bad place for this movie to land in the time line, it gives the writers opportunity to build a little bit more on the Xenomorph back story.But, because of the process close proximity of the Prometheus storyline to the Covenant storyline, this movie is more or less the sequel to Prometheus.
With that said, I am a huge Prometheus fan. Many viewers did not like Prometheus, I am only assuming it's because they missed a lot of the subtle details. The nuance of the Prometheus storyline seem to fall flat for a lot of the average viewers. And of course, Prometheus came under fire by a lot of the Crazy Christians, who just can't deal with a fictional movie that may say the word Jesus and it..
I don't have a lot of cons for this movie. But, the few that I have are pretty big. So that brings me to my first problem with Alien covenant.
#1, this movie felt like it was missing a lot of that classic Ridley nuance in the storyline. There was no clever writing, whatsoever. The storyline was very direct, and spoon-fed to the audience. A lot of extremely obvious foreshadowing!!! There was no Wonder to the plot. Which is fine to a degree, but it's better when the writers finds a more interesting way to deliver a back story or critical information. If it was important, the writers wasted no time blurting it out to the audience. So, if you're kind of stupid, you might really enjoy this aspect of the movie. After watching the movie, John and I had a conversation. And we believe the decision to watered-down the story, may not have been Ridley Scott's decision. Most likely, a studio decision, because too many people complained about Prometheus. These also happen to be the people that missed all the amazing nuance in that movie! No offense to those "dumb dumbs". Now that is just our speculation but we think there's some evidence that supports this idea. Like the fact that this movie is not named Prometheus 2. But, instead they gave it an Alien title. An odd decision, since it is most definitely a follow-up to Prometheus.
#2, It had some very obvious potholes. I'm not going into details as I do not want to spoil the movie. However, if you have watched Prometheus or alien or aliens, you'd pick up on these plot holes. They were very obvious. An obvious plot holes will always bother you after watching a movie. I usually think to myself "how did that movie get out the door of the production studio with these plot holes? Was there no one there to prove the script before they produced the movie?". I don't want to discourage people from seeing this movie. But, I cannot deny that they are there, or perhaps, I just missed something?
#3, as silly as it seems, this has to do with the gestation period of the xenomorph for creature. It was just too quick. And I was not happy with the final design of the chest burster. But this is the least important of the problems I found.
Now for the things that I absolutely loved about this movie.
#1, I loved to the updated xenomorph design. They're a lot sleeker and a lot meaner looking. They also move a lot faster, giving them a more intimidating and organic movement. That will fill any audience member full of frightened terror!
#2, they really amped up the violence and blood and gore factor. I'm talking goddamn kung-fu ninja Aliens, exploding peoples body parts! More please?
#3, I loved some of the new Canon back story that the writers created, lot of awesome new details to process.
#4, the Michael Fassbender on Michael Fassbender action! LOL, OOOOOooooo, It was hot and heavy, LOL! I could watch a whole movie of Michael Fassbender talking to Michael Fassbender any day of the week. It was awesome!
#5, We get a whole new villain thrown into this universe! One of the aspects I love about the Alien universe is the villainy. The villainy is spread out amongst everything in the universe! The aliens are scary and bad. But, they are only one of the many villains of the storyline (this is where that nuance I referred to earlier comes in to play This alien covenant movie builds and expands a little bit more on that idea here, and gives a face and identity to one of these aspects. Leaving you wanting to see more of this new threat, now roaming the galaxy.
#6, for my final Pro comment. The end of this movie was a saving grace. Had the end of this movie gone in any other direction, I would've given this a really bad review and probably placed it as one of the worst alien movies made. But the ending was really good (obvious but good) and made everything worth watching.
It was good, and I would will watch it again. that's the beauty of Ridley Scott's movies, there is always more to figure out.