Sadly a let down for the real Alien fans

Rating: 3/10 (4 August 2017)

It's been a while since I wrote the last preview, and it took me quite a while to decide to write a review on this one. I am an Alien fan since day one, since I already loved the morbid works of the late H.R Giger, a true master of the insane art. What H.R. Giger has created with that Alien, was a phenomenon - and through the hands of Ridley Scott the Alien phenomenon was born in such a genius way, that possibly no science fiction horror creature had such an impact. Before I get to the review of Covenant, I take a look at the Alien movies so far:
The original Alien movie was a gem, a genius piece of art, and what made it so fantastic for the audience is, that the surrounding story is plain simple and the character development was pretty basic. The characters were introduced on simple basics - you don't really learn much about them but you grew to like them nevertheless. The focus though is on the claustrophobic surrounding and of course: the alien. And there was Ltd. Ripley, who was the heroine no one ever expected. The viewer was scared to death when watching the movie for the first time in the dark.
The second film "Aliens" worked very well too, although there were a lot of characters that could have made the movie messy - which it didn't, surprisingly. Everything was centered on the Aliens and on the survivors getting out alive. Again, the claustrophobic surrounding worked.
Alien3 worked for me too, even when there was already some odd character development of the doctor - which again dragged the scenes at some point, but it was not too much ... and the franchise should have stopped there, with the death of Ripley.
But in the 4th installment "Resurrection" they brought Ripley back Â… Sadly the movie had this absolute comedy parts that were so misplaced in the well known serious business Alien world, and pulled the previous Alien movies over the table and stabbed them in the back. Still, as a hardcore Alien fan I said "OK, it was not that good, but it I have seen worse."
Then Prometheus came, and I was like "hell yeah". The original creator Ridley Scott at work and getting the franchise back on track ... at least that was what I was thinking. And although the movie did not show any Aliens that we knew so well, the connection was made. It was not that good as it was expected, but it was getting in a better direction. I left me interested, as some interesting questions were asked.
And finally Covenant ... (spoilers ahead) I had such high expectations, and was left disappointed! I have seen the film in the movie theater when it premiered - and after having seen it at home yesterday on my TV screen, I made my final decision on my opinion about the Covenant movie. The start off Covenant was good and the first 40 minutes or so delivered and headed in a good direction. The character development there was still basic, the score of the original Alien worked very well. Sadly, James Franco's character as captain of the Covenant was killed off before it could be introduced (I think they should have left him unharmed and alive, he would have delivered so much better, than his substitution, and he could have carried the movie too, instead of letting Fassbinder carry the movie alone). Everything went well until "David" came into play again, to rescue the Covenant crew and lead them in his "save house". From there on it was going downhill, too much story and too much character development - plus incredibly naive decisions of the remaining characters. The 10 years in between of Prometheus and Covenant were explained in a poor excuse of a try to explain the happenings. The true fate of Dr. Shaw is not really discovered - one can only speculate in several different directions. The answers behind the engineers from the Prometheus movie are buried forever, without a logic motive to David's rogue attack on the engineers. We'll never know where that black liquid originated. The android character development was far too much and killed the pace of the movie - just as the poor and stupid decisions of the rest of the crew - who never could grow on you. And when they got killed, it left you completely unmoved. Thee heroine was a complete waste of money, sorry to the actress, but she didn't bond at all with the viewer (they should have left Dr. Shaw alive, and take over the Covenant, instead of this poor excuse of a heroine). The chase on the Covenant was so unemotional, that it is a shame. The original Alien scared you to the edge of your seat while walking through the corridors - and in Covenant the characters walk around like in a little hurry on a warm summer day in the park, while hunting the Alien. WTF Ridley Scott?!!!
Covenant started off good, headed the right path, but sadly jumped right off the cliff in the middle of the movie. RIP Alien movies - Covenant is the worst installment ever in this franchise, and I hoped for so much more - because it could have done so much better!
Don't get me wrong, I have seen movies worse than this one, but on the other hand I have seen better ones too - and five of them were the previous Alien movies. And there is one question that bugs me: How the hell will Scott explain, how the "navigator" in the engineers ship of the original Alien movie ends up there at LV-426, with all those thousands of eggs in the ship's storage. Listen Ridley Scott, I think you just messed it up this time!