Alien Covenant is a grower

Rating: 9/10 (27 May 2017)

A little spoiler free advice for the utterly disappointed:
While I admit that after my first viewing of this movie I felt a little bit of a let down as well, I must say that many of the 1 star reviews over here are absolutely exaggerated.
This is what I did: After my first viewing I noticed that the movie had a couple of problems, but I saw enough interesting things that made me go back to the cinema to check it out again. I owed that to myself being a huge fan of Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien3 (1991) and Prometheus (2012).
What did I find out? Many things are easily overseen during the first viewing, which is why I would recommend to those that are not completely drowning in hysteria to watch it again.
I watched it 6 times now, and I still acknowledge a couple of the negative points, namely:
1) Some character choices 2) The execution of the last 25 minutes of movie EXCLUDING the ending scene 3) The fact that the movie was heavily cut. 122 minutes of run time is fine, but it is easily seeable that a lot of stuff - especially for the benefit of further character development and one notorious action scene - was deleted. I'm really keen to see how the director 's cut will look like. 4) Foreseeable plot twist
But, and I mean this in all sincerity, the movie really grows on me, so here are the positives:
1) The movie does not undo Prometheus, it is actually quite the opposite and many questions from that movie are being answered. IF, and yes, this is a big IF, one takes the time to watch the movie a second time, because many answers are not thrown at us blatantly, but do become obvious, which I like very much 2) Fassbender is great from the get go, but now I can truly appreciate Waterston, McBride and Seimetz for their performances as well. Waterston is not little Ripley, she is a totally different personality and reminded me a bit of Private Hudson in Aliens (1986), playing the "voice of the audience", of course with a totally different attitude. 3) The future: Scott will deliver two additional movies, and the running order is this one: (1) Prometheus (2) NEW: Alien Awakening (3) Alien Covenant (4) NEW last movie before we dock onto Alien (1979). He has said this on many occasions, and the way Alien Covenant works in its own right and clears many questions out of the way, while at the same time asking new ones provides a WONDERFUL setting for the new Alien Awakening movie, especially if we consider the ending of Alien Covenant.
Again, give this movie another chance, in my humble opinion it really pays of.