A great big beautiful dump

Rating: 5/10 (21 May 2017)

So here's the thing... the last review I wrote here was for Prometheus, you can add me to the list of people who were disappointed by that film. Being a massive fan of Alien I've read every book, every piece of trivia, seen all the making of documentaries and own all the films on VHS, DVD and the recent Anthology box set. When I first heard about Prometheus I was pretty excited, especially as Ridley was at the helm! The trailer made it look so promising... but then came a movie that destroyed everything, the timeline, the space jockey, all of it... I went on the blame Damon Lindelof for it, especially after reading the original awesome Jon Spaths script.
Opening night, it starts well...
Then it continues and even though there is not much character development like in Alien, it's feeling better than Prometheus. What I liked about Alien, is how you felt the characters had known and worked with each other for ages, talking about money, food etc, friendships that form (Brett and Parker come to mind) I didn't get that feeling with the Covenant crew. So then Danny McBride picks up a rogue radio transmission and they narrow it down to a new planet with a habitat that can sustain life, one they just happened to miss while surveying the universe for habitable planets, a transmission that can be picked up by a space helmet but not a giant spaceship. Then the new captain makes the decision to throw away the ten years of planning and training and decides to head to this new planet because no one can be arsed to go back into hypersleep.
Queue the Aliens style landing on the new planet. Let's land in the water, which could contain anything and get our legs wet and not bother landing on that land over there, or even better let's ignore that entire Alien city in walking distance just across the way. Hey Walter, I've got a good idea, instead of sending 85% of our human crew why don't you go ahead and survey it for us so we can keep this cargo of 2000 people safe? Actually, no forget it, lets all go, and do you know what's a good idea? Let's forget wearing any space suits because the air is breathable and there can't possibly be any airborne alien viruses or anything right? right! let's go.
The middle of the film picks up slightly with some tension building music and some airborne viruses fired out from some alien plants infecting two unfortunate members of the crew (should have put those damn space helmets on!)
What is the best thing to do when a member of your crew gets sick with an alien pathogen? Put them in quarantine? no, let's bring him into the medical bay and lock him in, wait for a massive alien that's developed in his body in a matter of minutes to burst out his back and THEN open the door to try and kill it... watch out for that blood on the floor... don't want slip over holding a gun.
I quite liked the introduction of the new Alien, even if they did grow massive in a matter of minutes.
The film takes it's biggest nosedive is when David appears. Hey guys, let's follow this guy we don't know past all these burnt looking bodies and not bother to ask how they all died... The rest of the film from here ruins my idea of Alien, including the whole timeline. My issues arise with David managing to create alien eggs, and aliens, in a cave, for ten years, with a flute.
My issues with this are as follows, in Alien John Hurt finds this amazingly beautiful creature, sat in a pilot's seat in an alien craft, it's a huge creature which has been there for a long time it seems (John says it must have been there thousands of years, it's fossilised) but Prometheus changes this timeline as its only set 100 years or less before Alien, and if David creates these Alien eggs then who planted them thousands of years ago on that Alien ship on LV426?. They could have used a great opportunity to set the prequels on this planet, or at least how it got to that planet, but instead, set it across multiple planets and drag it out, changing the timeline as it goes.
The rest of the film is just a re-hash of all the other films. Billy Cudrup thinks it's a wise idea to follow David into a dark basement, full of eggs, moments after seeing him stood next to his crewmates head ripped off on the floor... maybe call for some help? or maybe look into suspicious looking egg? Let's look in the egg, get facehuggered and have an alien pop out all in ten minutes, then a fully-grown alien appears moments later.
I didn't care for the crew by the end of the film, they kill one alien, so the writers had to think of a way to get another alien on the ship, let's infect another crewman who's name I don't remember or care about and have another alien fully grown and stalking the rest of the crew in the next ten minutes. There's also a very obvious and predictable twist.
All this excitement and death has got two of the crew horny, hey let's go have a shower with some really loud music so we can't hear our crewmates because they won't need us right? at least we see some boobs.
Let's blow it out the airlock because that's never been done before, reveal the twist and then end it.
The film is shot beautifully but the script is dire.