Not terrible but terribly unnecessary

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 2017)

The original Alien is one of the greatest horror films ever made. Aliens is one of the best sequels ever made. Then they made more movies that ranged from awful to merely forgettable. Alien: Covenant falls into the merely forgettable category. It is not a bad movie. But considering that the idea of Ridley Scott making a new Alien movie was merely a fanboy pipedream for decades, mediocrity is a colossal disappointment.
Covenant is a sequel to Prometheus and a prequel to Alien (got that?). Oddly enough, it manages to be a sequel to Prometheus without directly following up on the events of that film and a prequel to Alien without directly leading into the events of that film. Prometheus ended with Shaw and David heading off to the Engineers' home planet to finally ask of our creators the timeless question that lies at the core of humanity's very existence: WTF? We don't get that movie. We get a brief flashback explaining that David killed the Engineers by using their own bio weapons against them, then took up residence on another planet and has been playing mad scientist for the last decade or so. He lures a ship to his planet with a distress signal and then murderous hijinks ensue. In many ways, this reminds me of Alien 3. Important characters and plot threads are disposed of off-camera before the movie begins and then it essentially dives into an inferior remake of the original movie. It is like a fan fiction side-story that somehow became a real film.
Odd story choices aside, the underlying problem here is that I just don't care. Not once while watching Alien did I wonder where these things come from. I knew that it was a killer alien and I never really needed additional information. Scott has created an entire series of films to answer questions that I never asked in the first place. Despite its flaws, I enjoyed Prometheus largely because it managed to be a prequel to Alien while still doing its own thing. I feel like a more interesting movie took place between Prometheus and this movie, but Scott listened too much to audience criticisms of Prometheus and decided to instead just give us an Alien rehash. Additionally, it does more to confuse the timeline than clarify it. At the end of Prometheus, I could have filled in the blanks and drawn a dotted line from the end of that movie to the beginning of Alien. This movie takes that dotted line on a meandering detour and the mysterious transmission to the Nostromo that kicks off Alien doesn't seem to be getting much closer. All of this explanation and backstory does nothing but demystify the aliens and the events of the original movie (assuming that we ever get to those events).
Speaking of demystifying the aliens, the special effects in this movie are awful. If you regularly read my reviews (which I appreciate), you know that I don't like computer effects. I really don't like computer effects in horror films. I really, really don't like computer effects in sequels/prequels to horror films that are considered landmark accomplishments in special effects. The creature design and effects in the original Alien are among the best ever, and the computerized versions of them just look like cheap imitations that are unworthy of the original's legacy. But, you say, the computer effects allow for more range and mobility. Yeah, that's part of the problem. Much of the suspense of the first film is derived from the characters being stuck in dark, confined spaces with a monster lurking in the shadows. In this movie, the thing is out running and jumping all nimbly-bimbly like in broad daylight. It looks fake, it looks silly and it drains any sense of dread or mystery from the creature.
As a standalone film, this isn't terrible. But it pales in comparison to the first two movies and, in the context of the series, just feels unnecessary. If you aren't a horror nerd like me, you probably won't have an attachment to the material that will prevent you from enjoying it as just a decent horror movie that will kill two hours. But if you haven't seen Alien or Aliens, you need to stay home and watch those classics instead.