Alien: Covenant (2017) review

24. Alien: Covenant (2017)

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Produced by: David Giler, Walter Hill, Ridley Scott, Mark Huffam, Michael Schaefer

Screenplay by: John Logan, Dante Harper

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir

Even though “Prometheus” wasn’t the triumphant comeback the “Alien” franchise was looking for, I maintain that there are interesting concepts and a grand sense of scale and wonder, even if the story never reaches its potential. I was curious to see where they would go with a continuation, given the open-ended climax; five years later, we get a direct sequel called “Alien: Covenant,” which unfortunately scraps most of the intrigue in favor of just another movie about astronauts encountering Xenomorphs on another planet. Noomi Rapace is reduced to a voice cameo as Elizabeth, while the story is about the crew of the colonization ship Covenant, who land on an uncharted planet, and are faced with unspeakable horrors. This movie tries to atone for the “sins” of its predecessor with a more familiar plot, but it comes across as stale, stupid and unnecessary.

After a brief prologue where we see the creation of the android David (Michael Fassbender), the film cuts to roughly 10 years after the Prometheus expedition, where Covenant is on a years-long journey to a distant planet, monitored by an android named Walter (Fassbender), who physically resembles David, while the crew and colonists are in stasis. A solar flare damages the ship, killing Captain Jake Branson (James Franco) and leaving his wife Daniels (Katherine Waterston) despondent; while repairing the damage, Covenant receives a transmission of a human voice from a nearby planet, apparently more habitable than their destination. Although Daniels is wary, new captain Oram (Billy Crudup) stresses his authority and has the crew investigate. Upon arrival, they discover a crashed alien ship, while some of the crew members are infected by spores, which cause alien creatures called neomorphs to burst from them. After several casualties, the remaining crew are rescued by David, who explains that he and Elizabeth were on the crashed ship that released a pathogen that’s spawning these creatures; but as Walter and Daniels ponder the situation, is there more to it than David is letting on?

I think Michael Fassbender is really underrated as a performer; he can be in some shoddy projects, but always brings this gravitas and just inherently make the film better. David was the most memorable character in “Prometheus,” so Ridley Scott probably figured, “Why not two Fassbenders for the price of one?” Walter is a less advanced android model, speaking with an American accent and is not nearly as inquisitive, so the scenes where he and David interact have some engaging ideas about creation and fate. But I don’t feel like either really learns anything from each other, so it comes across more self-congratulatory than provocative. There’s a whole scene where David shows Walter how to play the flute, with weirdly suggestive dialogue. David has no consistency to any of his motivations; rather than his charming curiosity or precocity that initially gave these prequels a unique point of view, he's completely nihilistic, and it just comes out of nowhere. All the concepts that “Prometheus” left up in the air are just resolved here in rushed exposition to characterize David’s bizarre turn.

With that said, there’s more to say about Fassbender’s characters than the rest of them; for starters, why give James Franco a pointless cameo as the captain who dies 10 minutes in? The replacement Oram is just kind of obnoxious and even mildly hostile, clearly on a power trip to justify his new position and his stance as a religious man; again, way to be subtle with the commentary, Sir Ridley. He’s not the worst or anything, but this whole investigation is embarrassingly inept, as they just wander around with no protective suits, helmets or contingency plans. The main character is Jacob’s widow Daniels, and based on what I’ve seen of her, I don’t think I’m a fan of Katherine Waterston. She always has this same sad, lost and lonely expression in any role, and unlike Rapace, her character never improves; the intensity, strength and growth aren’t there, and the dialogue where she talks about building a log cabin on the lake is a poor man’s imitation of Lennie Small tending rabbits on the farm. The one who impresses me the most is Danny McBride as chief pilot Tennessee, who plays it surprisingly straight and sincere, yet still injects the film with a lot of welcome energy in this sea of dull victims.

The production design is again solid, at least as far as the exteriors and interiors of the ship. But I’m not so impressed by the landscapes; they don’t differentiate much from the previous movie, and the mise en scène of the temple David takes the characters to is really cluttered. But it’s the alien effects where the film really suffers; even though the actors were reportedly given practical models of the creatures on set to react to, the CGI on the neomorphs looks really fake. Their movements are so jerky, you just don’t feel the impact or fear when they kill people, coupled with how underdeveloped these characters are. The film re-introduces the familiar Xenomorph eggs, facehuggers and chest-bursters, but even they don’t look very polished, save for a climactic fight outside the ship. Their outwitting of the Xenomorph in the final confrontation is also pretty creative, although the revelation it ends on is really obvious if you pay close enough attention.

Overall, “Alien: Covenant” is a movie I feel extremely indifferent towards; it doesn’t wow me like the first two “Alien” films do, nor does it anger me like “Alien 3” or “AvP: Requiem.” It’s just a watered-down version of the original story with a few variables, and despite the dressing-up efforts of the music and motif, it doesn’t feel any more profound than a standard mad science story. As of this point, there are no definitive plans for future “Alien” films, and I feel like it’s reached a point where there’s nothing further that can be explored; they’ve become derivative, dull and underwhelming by now. Nearly 40 years earlier, Scott was the creative mind that spawned a legend, but neither he nor the franchise are game-changers anymore; they’ve become products of a bygone era.

My rating: 5/10