Needs more Predators

Rating: 5/10 (3 June 2017)

We learned from Life that life is dark, vicious, nasty, gross, moody, brooding, violent, deadly, and mean. Alien: Covenant is a lot like Life. It's Life-like, even.
We get no satisfaction from seeing a backstory glimpse to explain whatever the hell is going on. There's an evil corporation that makes robots go off into space. There are Engineers who . . . engineer . . . stuff. People go off to colonize what they hope are viable planets. It's space, so you can have faith that something will go wrong, and soon.
It's maybe five minutes into the movie when we get our something wrong, and like the dumb astronauts they are, every human seems to take joy in making idiotic decisions which contradict protocol in order to reasonably risk everyone's lives. Don't shoot the food, and don't shoot the explosives when you're standing next to them.
Is it a philosophical commentary on the imperfection of humans? Apparently, the perfect life-form is a virtually unstoppable killing machine. Even the most creative synthetics can agree on that, that is, when they're not practicing concertos on handmade woodwinds, or tenderly kissing each other.
We get no real answers, probably because there are none to be gotten, and we'll have to be dragged along through 20 or so more films before it all comes together. Will anything unexpectedly good ever happen on a space mission? Will movies ever have a more foreseeable plot twist? At this point, everyone in the audience should be expecting nothing less.
We already knew from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that it's always been easier to destroy than to create. Alien: Covenant proves we can have the best of both: destructive creation. The death machines like ears and noses, but ultimately prefer good-old throat penetration. They do not seem to into butts.