A perfectly functional thriller/monster-movie, but sadly nothing more.

Rating: 5/10 (13 May 2017)

Starting with the good:
Michael Fassbender is the best thing about this movie, hands down. He plays both David from Prometheus and another identical android who arrived aboard the Covenant. They aren't just two identical characters despite looking the same, they are totally different characters and are both played extremely well.
Apart from Fassbender the standout was Danny McBride. This film is proof that he is actually able to act, rather than play a (hilarious) exaggerated caricature of himself as he does in everything else I have seen of him.
The film generally looks very good, although not as good as Prometheus. The set design and environments are great, but not particularly memorable.
When the sh*t hits the fan it is very intense and thrilling. There is a LOT of blood and guts. They definitely did not hold back.
Whilst the crew of the Covenant don't seem to be incredibly intelligent, there are thankfully no face-palm-inducing moments of stupidity like Milburn vs the death worm in Prometheus.
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And now the bad.
Simply put, the film was not scary. Intense, yes. Thrilling, yes. Scary? Unfortunately not.
CGI seems to have been favoured over practical effects when creating the various alien creatures. Some shots used guys in suits, and some used motion capture, but sadly the majority blatantly looked fake to me. It wasn't painfully bad, but when compared with the mostly convincing practical effects from the first two Alien films and Prometheus in particular it was disappointing to see them depart from this.
There is a twist ending which I saw coming.
The script was nothing special. There was no memorable dialogue outside of the first scene.
There are repetitions of some of the musical themes from Alien and Prometheus, but apart from that the music isn't memorable at all.
I won't spoil anything but let's just say the alien creature's life cycles have become a joke, and are accelerated to the point of absurdity.
Very little sense of wonder and awe. Think back to the scene from Alien where the crew discover the engineer. Think back to the first half hour of Prometheus. There is very little of that here.
They show too much of the aliens. Virtually every shot is a full body CGI shot of the creatures running around. Scenes that may have been intense are neutered by the fact that we can see everything. There is no "Jaws" philosophy here, everything is on show.
The alien creatures appear to have been reduced to dumb animals. Whenever they are defeated it is because of their own stupidity rather than the heroics or bravery of the human characters.
The third act is tacked-on, nonsensical and blatant fan-service.
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So to sum up, it stands on its own as a perfectly functional thriller/monster-movie, but sadly nothing more. It avoids most of the philosophical meanderings of Prometheus for better or worse, and is focused more on the monsters. To enjoy this I really think you have to turn off your brain.
Here's where I would place it when compared to the other Alien films:
Aliens – 10/10 Alien – 10/10 Prometheus – 7/10 Alien 3 – 6/10 Alien: Covenant – 6/10 Alien: Resurrection – 5/10 Alien vs Predator – 4/10 Alien vs Predator: Requiem – 3/10