Batman At The Beach

Rating: 7/10 (14 May 2018)

The history of the new Alien prequel series is a weird one. Prometheus, the first one, was originally conceived as a full-on Alien prequel, and later reworked to a semi-spinoff set before the 1979 original, with no actual Aliens in it. Alien: Covenant, on the other hand, was initially conceived as a sequel to Prometheus that would 'even further tangentialize from the Alien series', and focus on the Engineers. After all, Prometheus ends with Shaw and David traveling to the Engineer homeworld. However, fan demand prompted Ridley Scott to turn Prometheus 2 into a full-on Alien movie, the creature's first solo outing since 1997's Alien: Resurrection and its first cinematic appearance since 2007's Aliens vs Predator: Requiem.
The result is a mixed bag. First off, the film looks great. Prometheus's cinematography, a delightfully otherworldly mix of gorgeous and sinister, carries over well into this film. Again, Scott takes it slow, allowing for tension to build as the characters gradually uncover what has transpired on the new world that is the setting for this film (fan sites call it 'Planet 4', since it remains unnamed in the film). The SFX look marvelous, and the CGI Alien looks worlds apart from the shoddy computer-generated beasts in earlier films. Still, it remains a bit questionable to see the Alien in full view (and broad daylight, no less). The earlier films showed very little of the Aliens, which amped up the horror element - less is more, and the one thing scarier than seeing an Alien is not seeing one (but knowing it's there anyway). Honest Trailers aptly compared it to seeing 'Batman on the beach'. That being said, the film is once again chock-full of 80s style body horror, now aided by high end CGI that allows for even more grotesque things to happen (the baby 'Neomorph' looked a bit iffy though). While the film amps up the violence with stuff like creatures bursting from backs and monsters biting people's heads off, it never becomes as over-the-top as in, say, Resurrection.
Cast-wise, Scott made some weird choices in the film. For instance, a big name like James Franco basically has no more than a cameo, dying in the first scenes of the film (he appears more prominently in the 'Crossing' prologue released on YouTube to promote the film). Also, Noomi Rapace sadly doesn't return as Elizabeth Shaw. She was one of the sympathetic highlights of Prometheus, and is 'replaced' by Katherine Waterston in a decidedly blander role. Fortunately, we are treated to not one but two Michael Fassbenders - he returns as the creepy synthetic David, and also portrays his American-accented counterpart Walter. Some of the film's most interesting scenes feature Fassbender basically talking to himself in Data/Lore fashion. David is more straightforwardly villainous this time around, but Fassbender manages to keep the character ambiguous and unnerving.
One of my main gripes with the film is its decision to give us an Alien origin story of sorts. As it turns out, the Alien was created by David in a genetic experiment with the goal of recreating the various creatures spawned from the X-Files-ish black liquid from Prometheus. This goes against most commonly accepted lore, that the Aliens were either a naturally occurring species or a weapon created by the Engineers. To see them reduced to David's science experiment takes away some of the danger and majesty of the creature. While it's understandable that Scott would want to retcon the 2004 Alien vs Predator film, which shows Aliens being hunted by Predators on Earth thousands of years ago, Covenant's origin story also contradicts the first Alien film, which showed Alien eggs on a derelict spacecraft so old its pilot had fossilized (Covenant takes place in 2101, just twenty years before the original film). It's not much solace that fan sites such as Xenopedia have reasoned that the Covenant Alien is a different strain or a 'recreation' of the original creature, since the direction Scott wants to take the new trilogy in is clear.
All-in all, Alien: Covenant is a pretty good sci-fi/horror flick that is unfortunately brought down a bit by questionable decisions regarding the series lore. But if you're not bothered by that, it's definitely recommenable.