Day 144 - Alien: Covenant

Day 144         Alien: Covenant [2017]

                          

Screenplay                    John Logan & Dan Harper

Based on                       ‘Characters’ by Dan O’Bannon & Ronald Shusett

Director                         Ridley Scott

Cinematography            Dariusz Wolski

Music                            Jed Kurzel

Leads                            Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride

Production                     20^th Century Fox, TSG Entertainment, Brandywine Productions, Scott Free Productions

IMDb                                  6.4/10

Rotten Tomatoes                 67%

I had to do some extensive research after watching this film into the Alien and Predator franchises to understand what the hell was going on in this film. Largely because I have no idea which films I have watched out of the three Predator movies, four Alien movies, two crossover movies and the two recent prequel movies (this and Prometheus). I’m sure there are timelines and fan theories galore in this particular universe, which may also include the Blade Runner films just to further confuse things. All we need to know for this one though is that it’s set ten years after Prometheus. It follows a colony spaceship which is travelling to a new planet selected for populating. The ship receives a beacon signal from a planet not far off its plotted course that is seemingly perfect for life and the Covenant crew got to investigate. As with many horrors and disaster movies of this nature I found myself getting incredibly frustrated by the actions of the crew in how they dealt with things going wrong. To be fair, they didn’t know what they were facing, and we the audience knew all too well that the neomorphs, xenomorphs or whatever you care to call them were on their way. But you would think you would have some procedure if things went wrong when you have just landed on an undiscovered planet. There are a whole bunch of questions I have about what they could have done differently – like why the hell do they not just stay as a group constantly when their lives are in danger? You’d think that is basic instinct when evil alien life forms are popping out of your comrades’ bodies and trying to kill you. The gore and action take over in the movie, leaving a frankly rubbish plot. Fassbender tries to save it with his awkward portrayal of two synthetics (they are all in the same image à la Jango Fett) but with unexplained plot holes surrounding his characters he couldn’t quite hold it all together. Wolski does the best job of making this film presentable. I have to question again whether Ridley Scott has lost his magic touch, perhaps he needs to go for quality over quantity in his old age because boy does he churn them out.

Acting                               3 / 4

Writing                              2 / 4

Cinematography             3.5 / 4

Music                                3 / 4

HWF rating                2.5 / 4