'Alien: Covenant' | The franchise continues
‘Alien: Covenant’ concerns the voyage of the titular ship, a colony ship, and its discovery of an undiscovered Earth-like planet seven years earlier than its destination.
Director Ridley Scott has followed up his divisive 2012 film ‘Prometheus’ with ‘Alien: Covenant’: a film more directly connected to the original ‘Alien’ franchise. But does ‘Covenant’ bring the franchise back on target, or is it simply another misfire?
WARNING!
This review will contain spoilers, so if you wish to see ‘Alien: Covenant’ without a knowledge of what is to come, stop reading now.
There are several problematic elements with this film, including that the script seems even less coherent than its predecessor ‘Prometheus’. The characters are poorly developed, the acting fairly average, the thrills obvious, and the pretensions to literature and mythology undeserved.
The film opens with a scene of Peter Weyland and the android David (Guy Pearce and Michael Fassbender reprising their ‘Prometheus’ roles), presenting the film’s major theme of creation similarly to how ‘Airplane!’ presents its theme of air safety. It’s odd that the filmmakers bothered to introduce the audience to two characters that don’t appear in the film for long, especially as one dies rather quickly.
The first time viewers see Katherine Waterston’s Daniels is when she’s lost her husband Jacob (played by James Franco - a weird casting decision if there ever was one). It’s difficult to get a handle on her character since we never really see Daniels in a state other than grief or distress.
The remaining crewmembers aren’t developed well, either, including a few marines who are sure to die. Danny McBride’s Tennessee is one of the only characters viewers will actually remember; Billy Crudup’s Oram is a religious man who brings up his faith about as often as one blinks, and Fassbender returns as new android Walter - adopting a weak American (?) accent that does little more than distract. Added to that are various other spouses and couples that will be killed over the course of the movie, but you’ll be hard pressed to remember any of their names.
When it comes to narrative, the filmmakers continue the terrible understanding of biology and evolution evidenced in ‘Prometheus’, with colonists exploring an unknown world with skin exposed, and then feigning surprise when one amongst them gets sick.
But wait! It turns out David from the Prometheus has turned up in this world and (in a twist that no-one should be surprised by)… he’s the villain!
Why aren't you all wearing masks?!
It seems David flew the ship from the end of ‘Prometheus’ to the new planet, releasing black goo onto the Engineer colony resided there. It appears the Engineers evolved very little over the intervening millennia, also growing wheat. And this all happened less than a light-year away from humanity.
David experimented with the black goo, using Shaw (Noomi Rapace - also a waste of talent here) as an incubator. Now, the ‘Alien’ franchise has always held the theme of sexual assault as a subtext, but ‘Covenant’ ups this to overt.
Insane science experiments led David to create ‘facehuggers’ and eventually xenomorphs; this happens after the black goo consumes the entire animal population of the planet, but not the plant life, according to David. (How the black goo mutated the plant spores that kill the first two crewmembers is a mystery, as it is how a synthetic being has growing hair, but no biology to mutate.)
There are what appear to be hints that David is malfunctioning, causing his insanity. He misattributes the poem ‘Ozymandias’ to Byron instead of Shelley, for one. There is an opportunity to pay off the early scene by having David misremember the Wagner piece ‘Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla’ but no, the opportunity and subtlety is cast aside.
‘Alien: Covenant’ recycles a number of the franchise’s best scenes and clichés. They were terrifying and exciting the first time around, but now that viewers easily identify the pacing of these moments, the expected impact is lost. Further, the film’s final twist is so very obvious that one wonders why they exposed the reveal in such a way, instead of keeping certain characters in the dark.
In terms of trailer verses actual, several advertising pieces show the married characters acting friendly and affectionate with their respective spouses, but the film itself evidences no such thing. Why?
Once again, an ‘Alien’ instalment fumbles with the mixture of mythology and horror that once made the series great. Perhaps it was just a mistake to try and answer the questions from the first film. If there is a way to pay off a 38-year mystery, this certainly isn’t it.
Relive the 'Alien' series and learn about its production journey HERE.
