This review may contain spoilers.

A lot of mixed thoughts here...

Covenant attempts a bit of course correction after the lacklustre response many people had to Prometheus (myself not included, I kind of loved it despite its issues). It ends up doing things which I found brilliant and things which I hated.

More time is devoted to character development here, and it pays off. The crew of the Covenant are an interesting bunch with distinct personalities and clear motivations, and notably Oram (Billy Crudup), Daniels (Katherine Waterston) and Tennessee (Danny McBride) get given enough to make us understand and care about them. The rest of the crew are given less to work with, but several of them manage stand out in ways (the biologist, Karine, having some very memorable scenes). An interesting dynamic is that everyone on the crew appears to be a couple, which did add weight when they become separated.

Then of course there's Michael Fassbender playing the dual roles of Walter and David. It would be a lie to say anything less than he steals the entire film and every scene he's in in mesmerising. Especially once he meets the other version of himself, the interplay between the two manages to be creepy, vibrant and even homoerotic. It's an incredible performance, among the best I've seen this year.

The first half of film is the most enjoyable part. It moves with a good pace and lets us enjoy the act of discovery with these characters. There's some great drama going on between several crew members, but unlike the original Alien there's much more of a sense of camaraderie. But some odd decisions happen almost from the off; James Franco's character is killed off almost instantly in a very strange decision. He's a fun actor who could have brought a lot to this film, so I don't know why they bothered to use him at all. The characters death certainly adds to both Daniel's and Oram's arc, but the decision to hire such a well known actor and never use him is perplexing.

The musical score is also a high point, filled with lush melodies and dark pulsing. I heard themes referenced from the original Alien in there, and maybe even some from its sequels.

Once we get to the planet it's a visual feast, and there's a strong sense of anticipation. I was very much into it at this point. Unlike Prometheus, these characters don't appear to be written to be complete morons. The film makes a bold statement here with the very gory arrival of unwanted monsters in memorable scenes, but this is also where things begin to feel rushed. Aliens are seemingly birthed minutes after impregnation, a bit of a weird decision. It removes dread.

The biggest difference to Prometheus is that this time it includes more of the titular Alien creature, although what we actually see isn't the classic design but several variations on it that get closer and closer to the original. I believe their "official" names are the neomorph and protomorph, but whatever they are I'm sorry to say that they look terrible. CGI has been used in place of practical effects, and it never really works. The aliens move in a fast, jerky way and never integrate well with the environments.

Their real problem is that they are never scary. The crew encounter several of them and while they suffer losses each time, they just end up killing it and moving on. The Alien should be a really menacing, mysterious creature of death and it comes across more as a pissed off teenager here with all the screaming and running about it does. It's probably the least effective depiction of the creature we've seen so far. The genuine terror actually comes from David, especially once its revealed what he's been up to.

It's a harsh statement, but I sort of feel like Ridley Scott is ruining this creature.

One thing I really liked was the expansion of the mythology. The film tries to clarify confusing plot points from Prometheus and give us clearer explanations of where the Aliens come from, but it's taking a very roundabout way to do it. There is a strong feeling that they're going in the wrong direction with it, but at the same time I find myself quite absorbed in it all.

The second half of the film is a bit of a mess. This is where most of the action happens, but it's action I found difficult to care about. Deaths begin to occur frequently, but they are oddly lacking in impact. I think that may have something to do with the overuse of CGI, but apart from a nasty chestburster moment it's all just too frantic to really follow. The shower scene from the first trailer is over in seconds, when it could have been used as a huge moment of tension.

And my biggest gripe with the film: the throwaway of Noomi Rapace's character, Shaw. She was easily my favourite thing about Prometheus and I was eager to see her story continue. They had kept her involvement in this film kept under wraps, but I was under the impression she would have a role. Not so. In one of the stupidest moves, she's dead before the film begins. All we get to see of her is a garbled transmission in which you can't even make out her face, and then her dead body mutilated in a really grotesque way. That has soured my opinion of this film more than anything, because this should have been about her journey. I sincerely hope there's a lot of deleted scenes that we'll get to see on blu-ray.

So, I half loved it and half hated it. I think I preferred Prometheus, and it's certainly nowhere near up to the standard of the original Alien trilogy.