Alien: Covenant (2017)
directed by Ridley Scott
★★★★☆
ADMIN’S NOTE: This review is of an R-rated movie. Although it is distributed by the Walt Disney Company, is it intended for mature audiences only.
The latest entry in the Alien franchise is a sequel to 2012’s Prometheus, which itself is a prequel to 1979’s Alien, which actually makes Covenant a midquel. The difference between these prequels and the rest of the Alien franchise is the prequels are all conceived and directed by the director of the original Alien film, Ridley Scott.
With that being the case, Alien: Covenant is much more consistent in tone with the first film and the first prequel than any of its more action-oriented sequels and spin-offs. Covenant is much more focused on suspense and intrigue than horror and violence — though there’s plenty of the latter to go around, especially in the film’s back half.
The story revolves around the Covenant, a colonization ship en route to a habitable planet several lightyears away. After a solar flare damages the vessel and awakens the crew, while considering their options, they discover an undocumented Earth-like planet nearby and decide to check it out as a possible alternative for colonization. While investigating their landing site, a couple of crew members are exposed to a parasitic spore that harvests the host’s cells to form a Neomorph, a hostile predator that bursts from the body of the host in which it formed. The remaining crew is stranded, rescued, and learns the fate of the Prometheus from 11 years ago.
Being the middle chapter of an Alien prequel trilogy, Covenant provides a conclusion of sorts to the survivors of the Prometheus, as well as a line succession from the Deacon of Prometheus, to the Neomorph discovered here, to the Praetomorph hybrid, while leaving the mystery of the final Xenomorph form as seen in the rest of the franchise, as well as how they ended up on LV-426 (the moon on which they’re rediscovered in Alien), for a planned conclusion.
Although the first act of the movie is full of surprises and suspense, and the second act provides most of the exposition, the third act becomes rather predictable as the threads of the first two acts are pulled together into a clearly defined canvas. Michael Fassbender returns from Prometheus to provide context for the android character, David, while also portraying a new character, David’s successor, Walter. The rest of the cast is filled out by mostly B-list actors such as Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, and Danny McBride.
Alien: Convenant is an interesting and enjoyable entry in the Alien franchise that feels a lot more like the 1979 film than any other, while building off of Prometheus’ established lore. While nothing can match the perfect original, Convenant comes closest in both quality and tone.
