My expectations were dashed. It had the ingredients but the chef burnt the main course.

Rating: 6/10 (11 May 2017)

SPOILERS! OK, Let me start off by saying that I am a massive aliens fan with Aliens and Alien being two of my all time fave movies. I thought Covenant was going to return the franchise to form with all these extra fancy trailers and clips I viewed online. I was wrong, while the movie contains great visuals and has characters with potential, it fell flat due to how dumb most characters were in the story, thus making the story less believable.
The movie begins very slowly and they missed all opportunity to build on characters personalities, instead they focus a large amount of screen time repairing the ship before the film really takes off. The last supper scene isn't even in the film! These explorers/colonists acted more like stupid teenagers in a slasher film. I found myself groaning with disbelief every single time someone acted in a way totally contradictory to their position on the crew. No joke, stupid decisions just keep happening one after the other. Here's some that I noted.
1. ROSENTHAL leaves the group by herself to wash her hands on a strange new planet and takes off her gun! placing it just out of reach after she is injured by an alien in the field. STUPID! 2. ANKOR places his face so close to some spores and inhales them? STUPID! 3. The whole landing crew walks off the ship with no protective gear and into swampy black water. STUPID (at least Prometheus made an effort to explain it when they took off their breathing masks.) 4. ORAM splits from the group and walks into a dark room full of eggs, because David just said so. Then looks in an egg when clearly he has already battled the Necromorphs in the film. He did not once ask David about any drawings of aliens in the room. STUPID! 5. FARIS - who is supposed to be a medic, freaks out at the sight of blood then lock KARINE in the medbay to die, however she comes back into the room and falls over the same blood she saw fall on the floor. If she was going to go back into the room wouldn't it have been better to use KARINE to fight the alien 2 vs 1. The excuse of Quarantine fell out the window when she went back in the same room! STUPID! 6. Not one character questions David over the thousands of engineer corpses in the coliseum? STUPID! 7. At least 3 characters go off by themselves throughout the film when clearly the group could have split into small groups and remain together! STUPID! 8. There are 2 necromorphs, 2 Xenomorphs, several eggs and 2 embryos in the film. There is no explanation why birthing Aliens grow so fast or chest burst so fast compared to what happens over several days in all other alien movies. STUPID! 9. When the alien bursts from one of the crew in the wheat field, Not ONE SINGLE CHARACTER WITH A GUN ATTEMPTS TO SHOOT IT when it is still vulnerable on the ground. STUPID! 10. DANIELS and TENESSEE, who are armed with machine guns can't kill one normal alien in a narrow corridor, when in (Aliens) 5 marines can kill a horde of aliens in a large dark room when they attack from the roof and floor???? STUPID The film also may suggest it has a certain agenda or tone - (the flute scene) and why does David keep trying to kiss everyone? While it may seem that I am nit-picking about many parts of the film, I do praise it for solid acting from most of the cast especially FASBENDER and have to say the cgi effects of the film are fantastic along with some of the death scenes.
The biggest sin by FOX and RIDLEY SCOTT is not allowing BLOMKAMP to make a sequel to Aliens. I would love to see Sigourney Weaver and Michael Bein continue the story of the colonial marines and Weyland Yutani.
So much potential but executed poorly.