Review Alien: Covenant film review by Necronom 4
Written By Necronom 4 on 2017-05-22 16:05:03
Paradise Lost? More like ALIEN lost.
I went to see this film on 12th May and I went into it knowing that I wouldn't buy into it as an instalment in the ALIEN saga. I knew I wouldn't buy it as I saw the teaser trailers here on scified months before its release.
The first teaser really got my attention and I thought this was going to be Ridley really returning to the feel of the original. Then, the second teaser was released and I saw a CGI alien insect jumping from wall to wall and jumping on a very grandiose scene. With that, my heart sank.
But, I was never going to buy into it. I don't know why I was kidding myself really. I mean, an android and human woman take off in a mysterious alien vehicle? Really?
Anyway, on to Covenant. The opening scenes really had me enthralled with David and a young Peter Weyland. I instantly thought "this is Ridley at his best!"
That scene was followed by a very beautiful depiction of a futuristic space ship going through the usual shit you would expect from a space ship in deep space.
The story followed much like that of the original (and still the best Sci-fi film ever made ALIEN) with realistic dialogue and very good acting. The opening scenes very much reminded me of ALIEN, especially with the ALIEN score being thrown in there, (I do think that they should have gone with an entirely new score but with similarities to the original.)
They set down on an habitable planet and proceed to investigate where the source of the signal is coming from. All good so far.
Pissy pants unwittingly treads on some pods, then something emerges from said pod and goes into his ear. Still all good. Then, the shit hits the fan and he's in trouble, he needs help FAST. They get him back to the shuttle and I saw probably the best scene of the entire film with that backburster scene (I just didn't like the creature that came out; It reminded me of something from Gremlins.)
The scene where the alien spurts out of the guys mouth was good old fashioned sci-fi horror, no complaints there.
Then, we get to David. Fassbender was absolutely fantastic as expected. His portrayal of a robot with a strange kind of programming was great. The way in which he'd sort of evolved since Prometheus and had even become unhinged like he was becoming human was unexpected and it was a treat to watch. Genius on Fassbender's part. So, still all good.
The scene where he deploys the black stuff on the humanoids was amazing! That was a great scene. However, as much as I enjoyed that scene it should never have been shown on screen as it produced a feel of a Grandiose, Hollywood, Superhero film vibe.
Now for the parts I have a lot of a problem with lol. As always of late, Ridley's films have been lacklustre in the second part of the second act and not as great as expected in the third act.
For me, the saga starts and ends with the original (ALIEN) which was quite realistic in terms of humans venturing into space and encountering a deadly alien lifeform (one could imagine.) I can imagine that's the way it would go down.
I was sort of hoping that Ridley would have gone back to the almost documentary style vibe that he gave us with ALIEN but it turned out to be too fantasy.
At least Prometheus (pushing all its faults to one side for a moment,) had some very intriguing concepts and gave the impression that the "engineers" were like unnatural, almost ghostly figures who were neither dead or alive but somewhere inbetween. Covenant shows that they're (the engineers) very much like us, with a civilisation and culture. That doesn't sit right with me at all and backflash scenes should NEVER be shown in a film in the ALIEN series imo.
The biggest problem with it for me was that I expected the engineer world to be more Gigeresque with city scapes that dwarf New York. City scapes that are made of a combination of metal and bones of the dead. No trees. No lakes. Just Hell.
The other major problem with it is that it implies that David creates the Giger Alien, that really is the part where I wave bye bye to Ridley's vision of the alien and space jockey fiasco as to my mind the space jockey race created the aliens and that will never change in my mind.
In closing, it was quite an entertaining film with a couple of very good scenes. If you're a casual sci-fi fan you will probably really like it. If you're a hardcore ALIEN devotee, it will probably be a great disappointment.
