The Alien franchise is one full of ups and downs. The worst part is the ups were predominately at the beginning as Alien and Aliens really started off this universe so strong. Alien 3 is debated and Alien: Resurrection is pretty crazy. Prometheus seems to be where people split the most. Alien: Covenant feels more like Alien, but does a few things that keep is from being great. Even with these issues, it’s the best Alien film since James Cameron helmed the franchise.
Alien: Covenant definitely works better than Prometheus
The Covenant is a ship on a mission to colonize a distant planet that may be similar to earth. Housing thousands of cryo-sleeping humans and even more human embryos, the survival of the ship is imperative to the future of humankind. The ship is ran by a synthetic named Walter (Michael Fassbender) and MOTHER, the ship’s AI, until a solar flare wakes the crew early. While repairing the ship Tennessee (Danny McBride) received a transmission from a distant planet (sounds familiar right) that is traced to a planet that is almost exactly like Earth. Captain Oram (Billy Crudup) wants to investigate though his second, Daniels (Katherine Waterston) thinks the risk is too great.
It’s hard to tell what qualifies as spoilers anymore when the trailers show far too much. Of course, you may be the type of person who avoids trailers because of that, so even the content revealed in the trailers will be left out of this just in case. This film has two prologues that give one spoiler about David and Shaw from Prometheus and the other features the crew. Instead, the largest criticism leveled at Prometheus is the writing. Covenant is much better overall, but still has some odd choices with character traits and plot. In fact, what Covenant does for the Alien franchise is something fans will likely be debating and arguing over for a while. In Prometheus, the film introduces a religious theme centered around the question of “why do we exist?”
The Characters really make the film
Oram’s character is clearly denoted to be heavily faithful and at a detriment. This trait returns with him a few times, but ultimately feels like a loose end. It’s disappointing as this premise does elevate the source material to an existential level, but it feels a bit forced. There are other references to the religious themes in other characters, but it never feels fully developed.
That said, the film ultimately works and is enjoyable. All the performances are strong, but Fassbender, Katherine Waterston as Daniels, and Danny McBride really stand out. Fassbender’s role could be a bit of a spoiler, but his performance in Prometheus was the best aspect of that film and he just builds on it in this one. Daniels and Tennessee are easily the best characters and they build the most empathy. Daniels definitely embodies the strength that Ripley did in the four original films. McBride was extremely strong and wasn’t really the comedic relief that most probably expect him to be.
Final thoughts…
Alien: Covenant does restore hope to the franchise and offers some intriguing, although possibly alternate, ideas to the rules of the universe. It does drag a few times in the film, but it does bring the intensity towards the second half. While a lot of the beats are repeated from Alien, the film does stand on it’s own. Alien: Covenant earns the Not Quite Golden, Ponyboy rating.
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