Did We Need This?

Rating: 7/10 (13 June 2017)

Alien: Covenant is in a very precarious spot. On one end, if you never saw any Alien movies before and stumbled into this movie you could think this is a phenomenal movie. On the other end, seeing all the Alien movies you might think that this was trying too hard to be like the first Alien movie while also trying to answer questions from Prometheus. I was sandwiched right in between in that I found this an enjoyable sci-fy movie but nothing I hadn't seen before.
I really liked the Aliens because they were CGI and creepy crawled everywhere in ways that they couldn't in the prior movies, but at the same time I liked that you never saw the Alien fully in prior films. There were always shadows that made things much scarier. The locations here were very cool as well ranging from the classic cramped in space to a cool planet.
Michael Fassbender did a wonderful job playing a robot and I really was impressed with Danny McBride's performance as a typical Danny McBride character but with more heart. Guy Pierce was also able to make some money from this movie as a five minute cameo at the beginning of the film. Other than that, there was no real stand out in terms of performances. Everyone played the freaked out astronaut really well.
I think what would have made this movie better would have been if there had been more creatures. I'm talking about TONS of creatures. I think it would have been cool if there had been a creature on the spaceship right at the beginning of the movie and they have to figure out how to survive as a swamp creature chases them. This could be played by Stellan Skarsgard just like he played Bill Turner in Pirates. In fact, he could just be wearing the exact same get up except more swampy, and he just roams around the ship trying to kill everyone and gets everything all swampy and misty.
Then they decide to land on a random planet and they fight the Alien monsters just like normal, but there are also Predators on the planet as well. They have been engaged in an all out war against the Aliens for a long time at this point and the astronauts have to decide which side to take. The Aliens are spooky and evil, and the Predators are also spooky and evil but there is a long back and forth where they side with the Aliens but it turns out that they double crossed then and sided with the Predators instead and once the battle is over there is a very VERY shaky alliance with the Predators and they are allowed to leave the planet, but as they are leaving the camera pans to one Alien that is still alive and is very VERY angry.
At that point they escape and it turns out the Alien was on the ship all along but there are also other monsters on the ship as well that one of the crew had been collecting in secret and they have all escaped. This third part of the movie would play out kind of like Fantastic Beasts mixed with Hotel Transylvania but ten times scarier. The movie would then end with all the monsters and crew being destroyed as the ship careens out of orbit or something and the last living person is on an escape pod but as they are floating away you realized they are possessed by an ancient ghost with unspeakable power.
I think if that was the movie it would have been better, but it was still enjoyable. If you like the other Alien movies then go see this one. If you like gruesome deaths and spooky spaceships, then this will feed you. If you like monster mash movies like Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein (which also has many of the other Universal monsters), then you may be disappointing at this film as it is just Aliens.