Alien: Covenant [Blu-ray]

I think the harsh reviews of this film are unfounded. Yes they landed on an alien planet with no quarantine protection in place. At least the crew of Prometheus kept their helmets on part way. Alien world, alien germs, kind of an obvious mistake. However, I can point out plenty of other Alien films which have a lot more to complain about.Alien 3, a film that languished in development hell and went through too many rewrites and too many suits who thought they were creative. That film ruined the franchise for me when it first came out. Later I gave it a chance on it's own merits and production value and I really like it now. I didn't hate the film I hated the killing off of Hicks and Newt from Aliens, the previous film. I've listened to one of the alternate screenplays for Alien 3 on Audible. Very good and more in line with what I wanted as a fan back then.I've seen virtually every Alien film in cinema release and have to say that Alien 3 and Alien 4 are weaker films in my humble opinion. Alien 4 I've edited out of my memory as it was such an obvious search for more money and it sucked. The xenomorph concept was crap and Ripley back from the dead was just stupid.Alien 3 was well directed, well acted and well shot. Some legendary steady cam sequences which are some of the best monster pursuit scenes in the whole franchise. As I said before, I liked it after I got over it not being what I wished for.Alien Covenant has a lot of characters who, yes, are disposable but it's done well and I am a huge fan of Ridley's artistic eye. Even just the placement of objects in a quick shot or the design of the tiniest prop or bit of tech is superb. This film shines brighter when you see it more than once. Three times was the clincher for me, as the characters are chewed up and spat out pretty quickly.Covenant has flaws, however production value, aesthetics and good actors make up for it. I really like it and recommend watching it more than once so you can properly digest it.

I have to say I am a little confused by the mediocre reviews this film has received. I'm not entirely sure what some previous reviewers want - is it something to do with the fact that it doesn't tie up all the loose ends from Promethius,or is it something to do with the fact that Sigourney Weaver isn't in it, and it isn't 1979 anymore? I acknowledge that there are a couple of issues with this movie: the somewhat predictable ending, for example, or the crane/Alien scene at the end, which jarred a bit. But (being a movie fan) having watched this film, and then having watched 'Taken 2' the following evening, it is clear that Alien: Covenant is, by the standards of many films being released these days, intelligent and at least makes an effort with it's plot - a very good effort, in my opinion. Furthermore, it's a MOVIE at the end of the day, and as a visual spectacle I would challenge anyone to deny that it is amazing. Also, the acting is pretty good, and Michael Fassbender is excellent - utterly believable as two different synth characters. Therefore I can only assume that most of the negative reviews come from die-hard Alien fans who think something is 'wrong' with the franchise now. I know there are serious fans of the franchise, who have a right to be disappointed if they want, I am a big fan of other franchises myself and have felt the same from time to time. But as a moderate Alien fan, I thought this film was very entertaining and thought-provoking: not ground-breaking, or without it's faults, but very entertaining - just like a movie should be. The five-star review is based on Fassbender's performance, the questions the film arises and the thoroughly-convincing vision of our world in the not-too-distant future that Ridley Scott has always excelled at.

December 2104. The colony ship Covenant is on its way to Origae-VI to establish a new settlement. A neutrino burst damages the ship in interstellar space and kills several crewmembers in hypersleep. Awoken by the ship's synthetic, Walter, the crew effect repairs and discover a signal emanating from a nearby star system, from a planet that is a much closer match for colonisation. Arriving on the planet, the crew find signs of life...and an answer to a mystery from a decade earlier.Alien: Covenant is Ridley Scott's sequel to his 2012 movie Prometheus, itself a semi-prequel/semi-spin-off from his 1979 horror masterpiece Alien. As the titles suggest, Prometheus was much more of a stand-alone movie sharing some DNA with the rest of the franchise but not focusing on the titular creature. Covenant instead brings back the traditional xenomorph and establishes how it was created, whilst resolving some of the questions left dangling from Prometheus.The result is an interesting hybrid movie which feels like it's trying to do several things simultaneously. It's trying to be an action-horror movie in its own right, a sequel to the more weighty concerns in Prometheus and a prequel to the events of the original movie. Considering a prequel to the original movie, let alone two, was never narratively necessary, this was an controversial decision, but one that ultimately pays off.Covenant has a familiar set-up: a starship picks up a distress call and diverts to investigate, finding a ruined alien ship harbouring something nasty, something which can infect humans and turn them into the incubators for monstrous creations. Things quickly go wrong and mayhem results. The film borrows its basic structure from Alien, although it does mix the ingredients up to keep things more unpredictable without descending into the sheer randomness of Prometheus.What helps keep all of this intriguing is that Ridley Scott is, even at the tail end of his career, still a masterful director with a tremendous sense of visual power and a strong design aesthetic. The Covenant and the various locations in the film are all impressive pieces of design, if less striking than Prometheus. Scott can also build tension like few other directors. This time around he's helped by a script which doesn't rely on the characters being quite as monumentally stupid as the ones in Prometheus, based on the fact these guys are engineers and colonists having to work way out of their comfort zones, rather than the alleged first contact specialists and biologists of the previous movie.The film is paced pretty well, with the action unfolding continuously from the landing on the planet to the final confrontation with the creature, and handles a distinct shift in storytelling when David, the android from Prometheus, shows up and effectively shoehorns a follow-up story from that movie into the middle of this more traditional Alien tale. Mostly propelled by Michael Fassbender's superb performance (as both David and the Covenant's synthetic of the same class, Walter), this actually works to the film's benefit, providing a shift of pace and perspective which changes things up and keeps things fresh even as we begin to move away from the focus of Prometheus (the Engineers and the black goo-ex-machina) and back towards the franchise's star creature.The final part of the movie - the human crewmembers versus the xenomorph with the androids serving as wild cards - is a bit more standardand and you can feel Scott checking out a little bit in the final battle with the creature in the Covenant's hanger bay (which viewers familiar with both Alien and Aliens may find dully predictable), but it's all well-handled. Less forgivable is a blatant sequel hook which, given Covenant's modest box office performance, may have been a bit optimistic. As it stands there's still a lot of unanswered questions on how the events of Prometheus and Covenant lead into Alien, but some of the revelations in Covenant make this perhaps a more interesting question than it appeared from Prometheus alone.Most of the cast are pretty good, with a surprisingly effective dramatic turn for Danny McBride and a strong leading performance with Katherine Waterston, with a good supporting turn by Billy Crudup. Fassbender with his dual roles steals the film, however, providing an icy new antagonist for a franchise that urgently needed one, having all but burned out the threat level of the xenomoph through over-exposure.Alien: Covenant (****) is an effective action-horror movie which overcomes over-familiarity with some excellent performances and superb direction and design work, although the soundtrack is at best forgettable. Stronger than Prometheus, if not on the same level as Alien and Aliens, it shows there is some life left in this franchise.

Good movie