Alien: Covenant

Daniels: “Are you sure about this, Captain?”
Oram: “How do you mean?”
Daniels: “We don't know what the fuck's out there.”

release year: 2017
genre: sci-fi/horror
viewing setting: home Bluray 8/18/17 and theater 5/18/17 (opening night)

synopsis: The fallout of the Prometheus expedition continues to cause problems, this time for a colony ship full of people.

impressions: It's tough to talk about this right now (the day it opens in theaters) without spoiling anything, so I'll approach this review a little differently. Here are the key things you need to know:

* This movie DOES explain what happened after the events of Prometheus.

* It DOES explain how the nasty life-forms in that movie became the nasty life-forms seen in Alien.

* And it DOES explain what happened to the race of Engineers.

There are some shortcomings (inconsistent xenomorph life cycle and growth time, strange lines and actions for the evil android, stupid behavior by some of the humans) and a lot of blood/gore as different forms of hostile alien life do what they do to unsuspecting humans. There was also another theme here, that of a creation rebelling against its creator. The David android not only did that, it also became a creator itself, as best as it was able. Overall, my first impression was that this movie's best accomplishment is bridging the gap between Prometheus and Alien, and it certainly has some of the best elements of both.

acting: Michael Fassbender has the most to do here; he's got two roles (the helpful, newer android on the Covenant and the shifty, older one from the Prometheus.) Katherine Waterston is the main sensible leader-type, who quickly has to get past the loss of her husband so she can deal with worse problems. Danny McBride is the pilot, who also keeps his wits about him rather than contribute to the problems. Billy Crudup is the sudden, unwilling guy who finds himself in charge early on.

final word: Not only violent and scary, but also grim view of what can go wrong in space exploration.

back to the main review page