Reminds Me of Another Second Film in a Prequel Trilogy…
By James Andrawes
“In space no one can hear you scream” that was the tagline for the first Alien film as it was self proclaiming itself as the scariest movie ever made. Over the years fans of the Alien franchise have had to endure bad sequels, action dumbed down spinoffs and a pretty good yet confusing prequel, but now here comes Alien: Covenant which has everyone excited for the return of Ridley Scott’s horror….except it just isn’t and it instead becomes lost much like the many ships in the Alien franchises.
Alien: Covenant is the story of a colony ship filled with humans and embryos to start a new life. The ship’s course is altered due to a neutrino blast and the crew decide to search for a mysterious distress beacon they find on the perfect habitable planet that has been hidden from them this whole time……
Sorry I had a brief triggering moment of familiarity with another second episode of a prequel trilogy that I just couldn’t ignore. It isn’t quite the same in Alien: Covenant, obviously, but how the film is written it may as well be. As Covenant is really the Attack of the Clones of the Alien prequels, a lot of meh and some pretty cool stuff.
The fault in Covenant isn’t the acting or really the setup or even being held back to match up eventually with the original Alien. Its fault is simply in the general plot and how things play out, both in the film and from the director.
The only way I can really explain my overall gripe is by saying that Alien: Covenant feels like a film written by smart people and then rewritten to accommodate for the average filmgoer. Instead of the film being of the equivalent intelligence of a species creating a new lifeform, it is instead dumbed down to stupid resolutions and playing it safe. If you laid the film bare on a table you’d be able to pinpoint the moments you can fix and one can only question as to why that is even possible. Maybe the film has some deeper meaning and maybe it’ll get better over time but the lack of a good story and then mixing in the lack of really good horror, and I’m scared of like tiny grasshoppers in my house and this film didn’t make me flinch, is really saddening.
I’m hoping that there will be a director’s cut, which there surely will be because I feel like the horror is held back quite a lot. It’s obvious how to increase the horror in the film. One example is basically a woman is tortued and destroyed quite a bit but it isn’t shown, you just kind of supposed to know it has happened. This is supposed to be some gruesome fucked up stuff happening with an Alien being born but instead of showing how disgusting and revolting the process is you aren’t shown and in a world now where everything is getting an R rating that is extremely disappointing.
There are moments in the film where you’ll think about what cool things they could do with what is happening but then instead of taking that road it instead continues on its own path that you can’t help but feel could’ve been better. Yes, it is explained how the final Alien was created but is that really all you want from this franchise. Instead of the film being a smart and sophisticated horror/thriller, where the characters are making life or death decisions for themselves and not just to continue on the plot of their own destruction, it is instead a more studio-friendly version of Prometheus with less back story and plot and more Alien action and lets say basic twists.
Alien: Covenant is a visual spectacle and it is still entertaining as a film. The characters it has could’ve created a beautiful and emotionally charged film where they make choices to save their friends or loved ones. It should’ve been a film where people are affected psychologically and be more surprised and scared of what’s going on. The acting is good, the score is good and the set design is marvellous its just a shame to see it all go to waste.
Alien is a franchise that I would now expect to be top tier in sci-fi and Covenant just doesn’t cut it. I want to continue writing more but it’ll be spoiler stuff. I’ll finish this review with one last note and that is if you root for the Alien then you’ll like this film and if you just want to watch a bit of action in the Alien world, similar to Aliens, then you’re in for a treat. Just don’t expect too much more than that or else you’ll find yourself disappointed because in the cinema everyone will hear you go meh.