Disappointing follow-up of the ALIEN franchise re-boot

Rating: 7/10 (18 May 2017)

ALIEN : COVENANT (2017) **1/2 Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir (Cameos: James Franco, Guy Pearce and Noomi Rapace) Disappointing follow-up of the ALIEN franchise re-boot set a decade after PROMETHEUS in which a colonization journey into deep space this time finds its unwitting (and that's putting it mildly) crew finds itself tracking (wait for it) a distress call that they must investigate (because what could possibly go wrong)? In spite of iconic director Ridley Scott at the helm once again and his artistic brio is at full tilt (Chris Seager's ace production design, awesome cinematography by Dariusz Wolski, hey even echoes of ALIEN's Jerry Goldsmith score too!) the film is a disappointment for being far too a retread of the original source with touchstone moments and a truly insipid crew you could care less for (just really Who Are These People? What are their individual purposes? The 'supporting actors' who are mostly unknown deserve to be just that since they are plastic as a SyFy Channel genre goof! - (the fact that McBride is the one who registers the most on screen is downright scary!), Fassbender getting in touch with his inner Jekyll/Hyde in a dual role of droids (Welcome Back David?), Crudup as arguably the stupidest commander (and real space cadet!) and Waterston is more Veronica Cartwright than Sigourney Weaver (yeah not helping), the patchy screenplay by John Logan, Dante Harper, Jack Paglen and Michael Green feels forced and pedestrian (not having one character to root for is a cardinal sin - then again you are rooting for the sweetly sinister xenomorphs to off the crew members one by one as they are rote (and wrote) to do (!) The saving grace is the bloodshed (yay!) and even though it is a CGI monster, the nasty as hell alien is a guilty pleasure to relish as it unleashes gory hell. One nice in-joke : a Roy Batty quip!