Alien Covenant - a severe case of astro enteritis

Rating: 3/10 (6 July 2017)

They say money and power corrupts. Whatever about the former, the latter certainly did the job for Michael Fassbender's David in Alien: Covenant. All well and good you might say and expect from a foot soldier of the notoriously clingy Weyland Corporation who will stop at nothing to cross space and time and star systems and generations to try and get the ugly Xeno-morphs to rule the universe. If only the determination to unleash unholy crap was confined to the star-ship Covenant.
Alas, as we have seen a dozen star-ships succumb to the busty-forth thingy since Nostromo, we should have come to expect that the bloody mayhem would soon find its way onto the spec-script and into the production office, where some quasi-Weylandian financier has decided to lay waste to all sorts of talent in order to get the franchise and its money making potential as ubiquitous as the black goo.
I am delighted to say I did not pay a dime to see this latest outing (which I admit I waited with baited breath to see, hoping that Ridley Scott, in the twilight of his career, might want to do something special. Wasted hope.). The evident trashy ambition for money evidently won the day.
Aside - It is possible the matte artists and effects people come out shining for their ominous and enticingly foreboding landscape set pieces. The rainy, alien landscape of the planet onto which the crew of Covenant are unfortunately hailed is wonderfully reminiscent of the Mission, Apocalypse Now - even Southern Comfort. But, that is the end of the comfort.
Katherine Waterson's miss-cast miserable sour-pus is an unbelievably dull and dreary hero, who has the audience wailing for a therapist and a panda for her care, not a confrontation with a beast - least of all one that might kill everything in sight except her. Michael Fassbender's dual role as David and Walter is an intriguing element which belongs in another movie, along with the tin whistle. From the whir of the talent-less lament onward it is an entirely downhill dis-symphony. In fairness, the poverty of this outing was flagged with the death of James Franco's character - we should have known something awful was wrong.
A thirty second promise of edgy, atmospheric and concealed fear - the era defining markers of the excellent 1st Alien movie, all evaporate into studio predictability, gratuitous soft violence porn, daft blood splattering and, frankly, a chaos of over exposure, limp scripted repetitions, hammy cowboy-in-space characters, too many lost spouses (yes!), badly and delicately hung hyper-sleep pods and I just can't go on. Did I mention the John Denver reference?
The denouement, with gormless weepy Katherine climbing into her cot is only appalling because the audience are by now baying for her to be made climb into an oven, such is her stupidity.
Ridley Scott has made some great films (OK 2) and some dreadful pieces of poop too (Black Hawk Down?) but with Covenant he has just gone and left probably one of the worst skid marks on the underpants of science fiction cinema as he allows himself to be dragged by the 9 digit dollar film making collar into the pit of ab-creativity. If you didn't by now get how crap this film is - how unforgivably dreadful - here is my final appraisal - As predictable, fluid, painful and unwelcome as Diarrhoea.