Alien: Covenant lacks the intelligence of its prequel, Prometheus, and is a schlocky B-movie, at best. Here is our Alien: Covenant movie review.

Alien: Covenant Cast: Katherine Waterson, Michael Fassbender, Danny McBride, Billy Crudup with cameos by Guy Pearce and James Franco.

Alien: Covenant Direction: Ridley Scott

Alien: Covenant Rating: (2/5)

The Alien movies stopped being great after the first two in the series. The first Alien film in 1979 was the pinnacle of what could be done in the space-horror genre. The second one, Aliens (1986), was the best the franchise could offer in terms of action. Since then, every other Alien film has tried to emulate a bit of both. Till Prometheus, the Alien films, including the spin-offs mashed up with Predator, did not push any kind of envelope. They were, at best, great B-movies.

With Prometheus (2012), the prequel to the first Alien film, Ridley Scott attempted to give an elaborate backstory to the Alien mythos. Prometheus was complex and dealt with a number of heavy, interesting themes. Prometheus was intriguing, one could even say cerebral, after the generic sci-fi/horror pastiches that the Alien films had become post-Aliens (1986). Ridley Scott, a maestro of the sci-fi (Blade Runner) as well as the historical epic genre (Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven) tied Biblical themes with Greek mythology in Prometheus and the result was a genuinely path-breaking Alien film that was mysterious and provided more questions than it did answers.

Unfortunately, Prometheus did not work financially as expected and thus, the sequel to Prometheus, Alien: Covenant is devoid of all the mystery and the myth of Prometheus. It is, instead, a schlocky, gory B-movie that would have been a whole lot of fun had someone like Paul WS Anderson or even Joel Schumacer (the screenplay is that lowbrow) directed it. In Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott tries his best to give the film a veneer of sombreness and dread but to no avail. Alien: Covenant is ultimately very generic and not at all the Alien film fans had been expecting.

The story begins with a colonisation mission on way to a distant, habitable planet. On-board the spaceship, called Covenant, are up to 2,000 colonisers in cryosleep and some 1,000 embryos. A neutrino shockwave rattles the spaceship and a few crew members are woken up. They soon discover a rogue signal in space - if you have seen the Alien films, you know this is bad news - and what do they do next? They track it to a new, previously unidentified planet where they discover human agriculture. Bad news, bad news! More bad news: they find an Engineer spaceship plus the black Alien spores that were first introduced in Prometheus. The rest, as they say, is history and so is the Covenant crew.

The Covenant crew finds human agriculture (wheat) in an unidentified planet The Covenant crew finds human agriculture (wheat) in an unidentified planet

After multiple Alien films, certain tropes have become way too familiar. These tropes really need to be done away with or at least be treated with some intelligence if the filmmakers expect to even remotely surprise the audience. For instance, the rogue signal from an unidentified planet. An Engineer ship, which always screams 'Don't Go There!'. Then the moment when a character in the dark looks into an Alien egg. And of course, someone is always going to get infected, then return to their ship and give birth to baby Aliens. Oh and the mandatory strong, female Ellen Ripley-rip-off who always has close-cropped hair. Alien: Covenant has all these moments and then some. There is zero room for any kind of mystery or suspense except for the Michael Fassbender character...s, David and Walter.

Michael Fassbender stars as David and Walter in Alien: Covenant Michael Fassbender stars as David and Walter in Alien: Covenant

What is an Alien film without a morally ambiguous android, right? Michael Fassbender's David in Prometheus was an ever-curious, almost more-human-than-human (wink, wink) android who had his separate designs regarding humanity, creation, morality and what have you. David is the most interesting addition to the Alien mythos in the last ten years and he continues to be so in Alien: Covenant too. Joining David is Walter (also Michael Fassbender), another android modeled on David, who is a little less spooky. Together, David and Walter provide some of the best scenes in Alien: Covenant and the strong, female Ripley-rip-off, Daniels (Katherine Waterson) is pushed to the sideline.

Daniels (Katherine Waterson) is a dull Ellen Ripley-rip-off in Alien: Covenant Daniels (Katherine Waterson) is a dull Ellen Ripley-rip-off in Alien: Covenant

Daniels is the most bland protagonist in the entire Alien franchise (excluding the spin-offs which don't matter) and one honestly hopes that after Alien: Covenant, the tropes that have become a common fixture in every Alien film are thrown out of the window for good. A franchise that begun in the hands of a visionary like Ridley Scott deserves to be smarter than what it is right now.

(The writer tweets as @devarsighosh.)

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