An improvement but same faults as Prometheus

Rating: 6/10 (13 May 2017)

On reviewing Prometheus in 2012 I said it "is a very good film which has been folded inside an exceedingly bad film." I could say exactly the same about Covenant. In fact this Alien prequel suffers from almost exactly the same faults as Prometheus. It's overlong, has too much mystical mumbo-jumbo that adds nothing to the plot and the dialogue is awful.
Without giving anything away you could immediately improve the film by cutting out the prologue, the flute scene and at least half of what happens on the planet. I have nothing against philosophical musings in films but that's not we expect in an Alien movie. We want the visceral and pulse-pounding moments building up to a crescendo without any baggage to slow down the action.
Ridley Scott has said he wants to build a franchise out of Alien to rival Star Wars. I believe he could do it if he'd ditch all the nonsense and find some better scripts. I really enjoyed Alien: Covenant for the most part but I'm really frustrated by the bits that apply the brakes when we want the action to keep building.