Alien: Covenant
(2017 review)

4 outta 5

Director Ridley Scott straight up made a sci-fi horror masterpiece with 1979’s Alien. After staying away from the series for a few decades, his return in 2012 with Prometheus was a heady, sideways, horror-infused look at the fringes of the mythology surrounding the series.   It’s an interesting take on the Alien storyline without quite being an Alien movie.  His current and third entry in the series, Alien: Covenant is much more properly an Alien movie.  At times, Scott seems to be riffing on his classic original film with some updated FX but it’s really awesome to see Scott cut loose. 

The ship Covenant, carrying a flight crew and thousands of colonists in hypersleep has discovered a planet capable of sustaining life.   Landing on the planet is the new Captain Oram (Billy Crudup), Officer Daniels (Katherine Watterson), android Walter (Michael Fassbender) and others while above awaits pilot Tennessee (Danny McBride).   On the surface, some unlucky crew members succumb to a deadly alien infection that rip out of people’s bodies and starts tearing terrified humans apart.   They are saved by an older android, David (Also Fassbender) who disappeared a decade ago on the ship Prometheus.  Now the stranded crew has to try to get off the planet while monsters are hunting them and David may not be what he seems.

Prometheus had some bloody splatter, and a memorable alien C-section scene, but it sort of accidentally slid backwards into its adult rating.   Covenant is much more gleefully and unabashedly messy with lots of f-bombs dropping.  This may not add too many new tricks to how Alien movies are made but it really delivers what one would expect from an Alien film while tying up a few lose ends from Prometheus.  This also has an aspect of a psychological thriller about what android can aspire to create and the answer isn’t pretty.

A lot of one’s enjoyment of a significant amount of Covenant is dependent upon one’s enjoyment of Michael Fassbender, who goes from quirky supporting robot in Walter to David who has gone all kinds of crazy in his decade of isolation.  It’s fun to see Fassbender V Fassbender in a few scenes as both Walter and David are very distinctive.  Crudup as the reluctant Captain has some great moments of being traumatized, especially when after landing for all of five minutes his loved ones die horribly.  Daniels isn’t as resoundingly badass as Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, Daniels is actually kind of meek but Watterson pulls off the action moments as Daniels keeps going powered by sheer terror.   Usually a comedic actor, McBride’s Tennessee is going through some rough emotional stuff and he plays it very real, which is key in sci-fi when monsters are exploding out of people’s bodies. 

Both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant have ideas about a larger guiding hand in the creation of life and, in both movies, the answer resoundingly is that there is an intelligent design and it is going to kill the hell out of you because the all powerful creator is a mad scientist sadist.  David survived Prometheus in the care of Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and while she’s barely in this film there is closure on what happened.  In the long view of the franchise, Covenant takes some liberties with amount of time from internal alien gestation to full sized monster but the actual length it takes for these things to grow was always hazily defined. 

Instead of copying the iconic chestburster scene, Scott varies things up here having creatures explode from someone’s back or mouth, shooting in a frantic, frenzied style. There are new, and very creepy, white-skinned aliens and the classic alien later on as the finale has a lot of moments that crib from various scenes in the series.   When a proper Alien egg shows up, it’s one of the movie’s best bits that hits the sweet spot of gory violence and the awesome power creation.   There is some decent spectacle in here too like when Daniels ends up strapped to the side of a flying ship and taking on a very stubbornly nasty Alien. 

Covenant opens up the ship caught in a space storm so people are being awoken from their slumber and thrust into a world of fire and violence. It’s a really intense moment to start on, especially what happens to the original Captain (James Franco in a brief but explosive role) Afterwards, the film takes awhile to get to the crazy stuff but the basic format of an Alien movie is to lull the audience and then assault them with messiness.    

There is a lot to like for fans of the series in Alien: Covenant.   It returns properly to the body horror sci-fi monster roots but still keeps in continuity from Prometheus.  There is a bunch of fantastic bits of Alien weirdness peppered throughout the film and the closing moments of Covenant are jaw dropping.  While this doesn’t match the heights of either Alien or Aliens it’s awesome to see it done with such style from the original creator.