Alien: Covenant  ★★½

I SHOULD have watched Prometheus again before tackling Alien: Covenant.

It wouldn’t have helped make more sense of the latter; but it might have helped me find something more to care about.

This is a significant disappointment from director Ridley Scott. Well made ad visually arresting, of course, but lacking consistency of suspense, interesting character arcs or plot twists that aren’t telegraphed well in advance.

As a fellow horror fan told me, in term of story it tries to be a continuation of both threads, from the original films and Prometheus, but fails at both.

The result is not the cohesive universe we were promised. Covenant progresses the Prometheus story to a slight degree, but simply borrows ideas and visuals from the original 1978 film without any significant re-imagining.

I appreciated the direction that Prometheus took us, but there was much more care taken for that script than this one. Apart from a throw-away prologue, the themes that emerged in Prometheus are largely unexplored and simply provide backdrop for the final act.

While the visuals and production design are impressive, there is a constant feeling that the interiors of Alien and exteriors of Prometheus are being repeated too many times.

There is some suspense, mainly through a general sense of foreboding, but some of the action is not in keeping with the tone of the franchise, particularly hand-to-hand combat and aerial sequences near the end.

In terms of casting, there are no strong stand-out performances. The female lead is no Ripley, but it was good to see Danny McBride handling a dramatic role reasonably well.

The character problems are best demonstrated by the mission commander, played by Billy Crudup. He is described a couple of times as devoutly religious yet this has no bearing on the film’s native or his motivations. This is particularly strange when you consider the creationist themes that could have been further explored.

As for the Alien itself, like the film overall, it is a smaller and less impressive version of the original.