When “Alien: Covenant” was announced, I was fairly apathetic toward the idea of the film. Everything surrounding the marketing at the time made me believe it was going to serve as an apology for the 2012 film “Prometheus,” a film I actually enjoyed quite a bit.
I didn’t (and still don’t) believe “Prometheus” has anything to apologize for and since “Covenant” serves as both a sequel to “Prometheus” and a prequel to “Alien,” I felt like the film was going to have too much to try and balance.
That changed once I saw the first trailer for “Alien: Covenant” because I felt the film would shift in tone back toward the first (and best) film in the Alien franchise. Upon watching “Alien: Covenant,” however, I came out of the theatre feeling about as apathetic as I did when hearing of the film’s announcement, and that was a substantial let down.
“Alien: Covenant” tells the story of the crew of the U.S.S. Covenant, a colonization group set to land on the planet Origae-6 with the objective of colonizing and populating it, extending the existence of humanity. After a random solar event causes damage to their ship, the group receives a human transmission from a hospitable planet nearby.
The crew decides to investigate the origin of the message and potentially use the new planet as their new home. Upon arriving on the seemingly perfect planet, they soon realize not everything is as it seems, and a fight for their survival ensues.
So I want to start with what I like about this movie. Specifically, the set design and the aesthetic of the film are really good and do a good enough job making “Alien: Covenant” feel at home within the Alien/Prometheus universe. Both “Alien” and “Prometheus” have stylistic differences that set each apart from the other, but I feel that “Covenant” does a truly fantastic job of bridging those two stylistic visions.
At times it’s incredibly dark and cramped, much like “Alien,” and it pretty flawlessly transitions to the more open aesthetic that “Prometheus” presented. This did a lot to help make the two films feel connected and since that was the primary job of “Alien: Covenant,” it at least succeeded on connecting the two films aesthetically.
Michael Fassbender gives the best performance in the film as he pulls double duty in “Covenant.” He reprises the role of the android David from “Prometheus,” and he also plays a new, more advanced android named Walter. What makes Fassbender’s performance in this film so good is the dynamic range he brings to both characters.
David and Walter are two distinctly different characters with different motivations, backgrounds and capabilities. Fassbender does an excellent job of portraying two characters who look exactly the same but are diametrical opposites internally. The film is perhaps at its most fascinating when Fassbender is on screen.
The last major highlight of the film is the score. It felt like a very good mashup of the scores for “Prometheus” and “Alien.” At times the score was haunting and tense, a prelude to the danger yet to come and a great throwback to “Alien.” At other times it was open and conveyed a sense of mystery and wonder, an allusion to its predecessor “Prometheus.”
Even with all of those positives, this film had one big flaw: none of the characters mattered. In an Alien movie, most people know what they’re getting into. People are going to die. What made “Alien” and “Aliens” so good were characters who were memorable and relatable. In “Aliens,” when Private Hudson (Bill Paxton) delivers the line “Game over!” the audience feels for the crew in that moment.
The audience has stock in the characters, and that line has emotional resonance. At no point in “Alien: Covenant” did I feel nearly as invested in the human characters as I do in “Alien” and “Aliens.” The only human that I felt any resonance with was Tennessee (Danny McBride), and even then I think that’s mostly because I really like Danny McBride as an actor, and any emotional currency I was supposed to spend on him wasn’t completely earned.
The film really tried to get me to care. It’s not that they didn’t put in the work. I just think the execution was a bit flawed. I think that has to do with the way the story was constructed as well, since “Alien: Covenant” wants to talk more about the philosophical themes of evil and creation than to deliver a narrative that focuses on character.
A huge chunk of “Covenant” is dedicated to discussing what it means to be created and the desire to meet one’s creator. These are themes explored heavily in “Prometheus,” but in “Covenant” I don’t think they pull it off as well, mainly because they try to balance their philosophic themes with a story that is also a creature thriller.
The best way I can describe “Alien: Covenant” is as a movie that quite frequently gets to be too preachy and thus gets in the way of the action and horror that are where the film actually has a solid foothold. This is similar to the problem I had with “Batman v Superman,” and just as with that film, I think “Alien: Covenant” is trying to do too much.
If “Alien: Covenant” would have focused more on the philosophical themes or on the action and thrills, I think it would have been a decent film. It tried to balance evenly those loads, however, and in the end it’s a film that doesn’t accomplish anything. The Xenomorphs look cool, and most of the action is really good, but there is no narrative that backs any of it up. It ultimately makes the film feel fairly empty.
I give “Alien: Covenant” 6.75 / 10
