Serve in Heaven or reign in Hell?

Alien: Covenant

Going to start the third review for the day to self-promote; you have any comments (positive or negative…I think I can handle the former) or just want to follow me around on social media just hit me up on Twitter or Facebook. Those addresses are @AngryNerdDiary and www.facebook.com/angryfilmnerd. Now that that is over we can gracefully move on to the third review of this day.

So set 10 years after the events of Prometheus, the crew of the Covenant is on a mission to terraform and colonize a new planet. However, a solar flare wreaks havoc on the vessel, damaging the ship and killing some its members including the captain himself. Reeling from this tragedy, a new captain steps into place and the crew begin to repair the ship. During the cleanup, the Covenant receives a strange transmission from an uncharted planet. Having ties to Earth soaked within the message, new captain Oram (Billy Crudup Big Fish) decides to investigate where the transmission is coming from due to its close proximity to the Covenant.  When the crew get to the newly discovered planet, things for the crew of the Covenant go from bad to extremely bad and they all try to just survive.

So since you all know that I try to be a positive person, especially when it comes to film, I am going to split this up into the good and bad columns that I have used in the past to show you my split decision when it comes to this film. I wish I didn’t have to do it this way, but I am psychologically torn in two when it comes to this movie.

The Good: Okay so this is more of an Alien film than Prometheus ever was and ever will be. Not just because of the Xenomorph, but because director Ridley Scott brings the creep factor that made the first Alien film so successful. New Ripley, or Daniels has she is properly named in the film was a nice addition to the franchise. Played by Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Daniels reminds the audience of what made the Ripley character so appealing from the first film, all the while adding a little more compassion to Daniels.  Speaking of characters, Danny McBride’s Tennessee Faris was an amazing addition as well. McBride is not over the top with the comedy relief and yet unlike a lot of comedic reliefs of serious films like this, he actually is extremely useful to only the characters within the movie, but to the plot itself as well. Last but certainly not least, Michael Fassbender is awesome as usual. Playing another synthetic Walter and…wait for it…David, the synthetic from the first film. Fassbender’s duality in this film is fantastic and hopefully will be praised later when award season comes around. As Walter, Fassbender is emotionless but caring at the same time. Though as David, Fassbender is on par with Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter as far as creep factor goes. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that I would love to see Fassbender as a villain more often.

The Bad: The bad aspects of this film are ones of logic that I don’t think that I could get over. I know there are aspects of movie going that just need to happen. Suspend reality and allow yourself to be emerged into any world at any given moment. However, sometimes I just can’t and I think it gets the best of me. First off, the transmission the Covenant receives is laced with an “ancient” Earth song by the name of “Take Me Home. Country Roads”, which happens to be sung by the late John Denver. Due to this song, the captain of this massive ship with at least 25 crew members and 2,000 colonists in hyper sleep decides to investigate the planet further. WHAT? You are the captain of a ship full of all of this expensive equipment and colonists; why not send…a PROBE?! Do we not have probes in this Alien universe? Second, why are these engineers walking around without any type of protection, like oxygen masks or hazmat suits? This is an uncharted and hidden planet, whose idea was it to walk around without trying to protect yourself or your crew? **SPOILERS** When Walter finally meets David and David begins to explain what happened, the audience clearly sees that this robot has lost it, WHY DIDN’T HE?! Walter is a “better” model; shouldn’t he be able to tell that something with David is a bit off? Speaking of not sensing something is wrong, why is Oram sticking his head into a strange egg-like form on the advice of David whom by the way was extremely upset that you just killed one of his ‘creations’? **END SPOILERS**

With every good thing about this movie, there were those annoying questions that would pop up. Like I said, I think this was more back to form for the Alien franchise and I hope they improve on this story a bit. The scenes with the Xenomorphs was nostalgic enough to look past flaws. My advice is to try to ignore the voice in your head asking these same questions and try to enjoy a decent Alien film because if you don’t you’ll have more of an Alien 3 experience and less of an Alien experience.

The Verdict: Wait for Blu-Ray