Alien: Covenant (2017) RE-Review
I reviewed Alien:
Covenant when it came out last summer, spoiler-free. I was honest, as I
always am. I went back and saw the movie a second time, after I wrote that
review, and I thought about it a lot more, too, and came to a different
conclusion than before. In summary, I originally felt it wasn’t as bad as I
expected it to be. Now…I think it might be worse.
My initial review (http://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2017/05/alien-covenant-review.html) is still relevant, and spoiler-free, so check it out for all my positive thoughts, but if you’ve already read it and/or seen the movie, proceed.
I was pretty easy-going on Covenant, because let’s face it, no Alien movie is ever going to top Alien or Aliens, even
when in the hands Ridley Scott: the guy who made the first one. If it couldn’t
happen with Prometheus, I don’t think
it can ever happen. But the thing is, the whole point of these prequels, or so
I thought, was to show the origins of the xenomorph. Way back, when there were
only four alien movies, Ridley Scott had talked about making Alien 5 and showing where the creatures
came from. It’s never really been a much sought-after origin from a fan
perspective, as far as I’m concerned. So when Prometheus finally came out all those years later, fans expected an
Alien origin story, but we didn’t get
one, we got a sort-of-origin-story for the Engineers.
I liked the Engineers. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I
was so surprised and pleased with Prometheus.
I wanted more Engineers, and less aliens, when it came to the sequel (though
seeing how they created the aliens would be interesting, because it was heavily
implied they were the creators of both humankind and xenomorph-kind). The xenomorph
was played out, Scott said it himself! But then the sequel hit a speedbump:
audiences didn’t like Prometheus that
much. “Hmmm, we better make the next one more like Alien, in that case,” the studio obviously said.

The more I thought about this simple idea, the angrier I
got. I’m frustrated by Alien: Covenant
not for what it is—it’s really nothing more than an amalgamation of all past Alien films with a decided lack of new
ideas—but for what it’s trying to be. This prequel series is spinning its
wheels. How many times are they going to muck around with the origins of the alien behind-the-scenes before they settle on something? It’s painfully
obvious at this point that no one has a clear idea of where it should
come from. It’s not as if this is a specific story that Ridley Scott or some
screenwriter has been wanting to tell for years. It’s a vague idea of
explaining something that no one really wants to see, anyway, through the
course of as many movies as they can get away with.
Believe it or not, I would rank Alien: Covenant below Alien
vs. Predator. Neither movie features human characters I care for much at
all, but at least AVP delivered what it promised: aliens fighting predators.
You can’t deny that it goes all-out in terms of creature action. Alien: Covenant fails in many ways, not
the least of which is cool creature scenes. It also fails to act as a
satisfying sequel to Prometheus, and
instead just remakes scenes from previous Alien
movies. Not only that, it has many of the same problems that the lesser sequels
had, such as Alien 3. Newt, a beloved
character from Aliens, died
off-screen. Noomi Rapace’s character Elizabeth Shaw, the last survivor from Prometheus, the one you’d think should
be leading this sequel, is killed off-screen. Now, mind you, it isn’t quite as
upsetting as Newt’s death, but it’s still a horribly misguided decision in
terms of storytelling.

This is the first Alien
movie I’ve had zero desire to revisit. Even Alien
3 and Alien: Resurrection, though
poor sequels, had some interesting
new things to bring to the franchise. Perhaps I’m just minorly nostalgic for
those films. All Covenant has that's new is the
idea that an android maybe made the xenomorphs, but it’s not concrete, so that
makes it even less meaningful. If in the next movie it’s confirmed that yes, David did make the xenomorphs, then wow, that’s disappointing. If they
switch directions again and go “oh no,
that wasn’t the real xenomorph, this is how they were actually made!”
then what the hell was the point of Alien:
Covenant? It was an absolute waste.
I know it sounds like I’m being really harsh on this movie,
and maybe I am, unfairly you could say, but I just wish the Alien franchise could properly return to
its excellent origins. If Prometheus had stuck to its original
script, which was set to include aliens as we know them and show how the
derelict ship crashed on LV 426, it probably would have been about as
disappointing as Alien: Covenant, but
at least it would have just been one movie and we could have moved on.
Prometheus was
something a little different, and I liked that. Alien: Covenant just reeks of the studio trying to make money. It
doesn’t matter anymore what the actual movie is about, as long as people go see it and
say they liked it, then they can keep making more movies. But they screwed up, because
Covenant didn’t make much money and
no one really liked it! So now they probably won’t make another one, because it
won’t make enough money to warrant being made. This is what I mean about no one
really knowing or caring about what story they’re trying to tell. If these
films had any kind of clear through line, maybe people would care more.

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