Disappointment!

Rating: 5/10 (18 June 2020)

The film is very superficial. I think it is a pity that it is no longer possible to produce films with the calmness and depth that is now necessary. When I watch the first Alien film with Sigourney again, I see very, very big differences. This film is now 40 years old and manages to entertain the viewer much better than the modern alien films Prometheus and Covenant. The film would not work without logical errors. Why does the whole crew end up on the planet? Why does the second captain ignore the concerns of his first officer? The Alien movie series could be legendary, but with such modern sequels, which are more of a war movie, this one suffers a lot. Nowadays more and more action and computer effects are used. A return to the original cinematic design would make much more sense. Furthermore, I find it downright hypocritical that this movie raises artistic and cultural claims, accompanied by classical music and playing piano, while the whole movie plot has countless logical errors. This contradiction is not understandable for me. How can a film make such demands on itself, but fail across the board due to the way it is made. Especially when I want to bring in an artistic and cultural claim, I am forced to tell and produce the film on an appropriate level. Even if the attention span of the average film viewer is decreasing nowadays, caused by digital media, smartphones, streaming services and gaming, this does not mean that every second Hollywood film can only cope with special effects and computer animation and that the story does not play any role at all. Furthermore, I don't understand how so much money can be sunk into a film that is based on logical errors. Furthermore, I think it's an incredible pity how many resources, special effects, pictures, film footage, scenery and probably also the actors were used. Unfortunately this effort is not reflected in the story. For that it is simply too superficial and erratic. Alone from the mass of content in this film one could have realized a playing time of 3-4 hours or could have shot two films of it. This makes this movie look overloaded, action trimmed and very hasty. The necessary adequate narrative calm does not take place, respectively does not find a place. Therefore, the viewer cannot immerse into the whole plot at all. It's just this immersion in a movie that is the key to really good science fiction movies. But if after a third of the movie you don't feel like watching it anymore, because the logical mistakes get out of hand or the rest of the story is completely predictable, an identification with the content is not possible. That's why it's even the more a pity that this movie wastes an incredible amount of potential and leaves it unused. Unfortunately, I can't understand at all why an experienced film director like Ridley Scott, makes such beginners mistakes. I can't rate the film with less than five stars, because I find the alien theme basically very interesting and I am a fan. Is the plot mainly about a colonization spaceship? Or about the aliens themselves? Or about the competition between the evil and the good android? Or about the genetic breeding of aliens? How can a film raise so many questions and then provide so few answers? Through this narrative style, any build-up of tension is made unused again. With what justification do the crew members remaining in the spaceship put over 2000 colonialists in mortal danger to save 5-10 of their crew members? And were the humans only abused by the androids for their research purposes?