Way Better Than Prometheus!

Rating: 5/10 (18 August 2017)

I am happy to say Covenant is far superior than Prometheus in pretty much every way imaginable. The first Alien movie was as perfect a movie can get, and like The Godfather, Alien is is one of the archetypal templates for its genre. This means the writers create sabotage when they completely betray one or more of the foundations of the original masterpiece, in this case "basic quarantine procedure." The worst scene in Prometheus, or any movie really, is when the supposedly highly trained scientist/astronaut takes off his helmet and lovingly approaches a potentially deadly alien creature, as one might approach a kitten. He is of course immediately eviscerated. I'll ignore the improbability the engineers' planet is completely compatible with Earth's atmosphere (hence no need for a pressurized oxygen suit) to focus on the crew acting in the same stupid, naive manner (in regards contagion, quarantine procedures), as they curiously plant their faces into alien fungi and are immediately infected/impregnated with alien spores. In Alien, Ripley won't let Cain and the rest in, one of the best scenes. This is because Alien knew what it was supposed to be: a movie about working class heroes who damn well knew and, and were highly trained in, safety protocols. It is the imperfect Ash, the insane robot/android, following company management algorithms' who signs the death warrant (props to the foreshadowing of David's madness and that, out of perverse "love," he is the killer of the engineer species and final creator of the original xenomorph). Another theme in all the Ripley movies is down to earth believable characters who are both instantly relatable and almost immediately convey the nature of their bonding (that is, character development). This is what makes a movie real, and to use the clichÃ©, "suspends disbelief" (think Brett and Parker in Alien, the camaraderie of the troops in Aliens, the colorful characters in Resurrection and even Bishop's barely revealed humanity in Aliens). We have none of this in Prometheus or Covenant and I can't help but to think the pressurized system of Hollywood has now become a formula within a formula (e.g. choosing actors without chemistry within scripts without passion to please agents and producers who act like realtors rather than artists). But all caveats aside, Covenant has the best alien birthing and kill scenes ever, rivaling even at times the editing of Aliens. Though not nearly as convincing as Ash or Bishop, Fassbender nonetheless gets the job done well (imagine if he was let loose to completely create his own character? One gets the impression he was given a very limited range to work with, especially being one our best living actors). And the creatures themselves are very well done, even without Geiger. If the producers and writers and directors had any sense at all, they'd let Cameron both write and direct the next one, unchained.