For a time, it felt like Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" was one of the more divisive films of 2012. While the idea of humans exploring the cosmos to find our creators, in whatever form or shape they might come in, is certainly an ambitious move, I felt that Scott didn't fully explore this concept to its fullest potential and focused more on the origin of the Xenomorphs, which I'm still unsure if people wanted to see that (I know I didn't want to). Part of the reason "Prometheus" did little for me was due to the incompetence of its cast of "geniuses" and how quickly it resorts to horror movie clichés, thus making everyone look like idiots.
If I had to describe "Prometheus" in one word it would be "stupid."
Of course "Prometheus" left a lot of questions unanswered and just made us far more confused as to how the events of that film tied into the creation of our favorite murderous aliens, which leads us to its sequel, "Alien: Covenant." I'm not sure if Ridley Scott intended for this origin story to be told through two movies or if he made this film to explain away all the problems people had with "Prometheus." But in any case, "Covenant" is more competently handled than its predecessor and actually gives audiences what they came here for - alien action and gore.
Set ten years after the events of "Prometheus," the colonization vessel Covenant is on its way to Origae-6, with more than two thousand colonists and a thousand embryos onboard, with the intention of forming a new society on a different planet. But after a random solar event, the main crew of the Covenant is forcibly woken up. They eventually discover a rogue transmission from an alien planet and learn that this world is much closer than Origae-6 and the crew decides to take a look. When they get there, they soon discover wheat but no sign of any other life forms, except for the transmission signal emanating from a nearby spaceship.
Coming out of "Covenant," my first thought was: It still has its problems, but at least it was better than "Prometheus."
This movie shares some of the problems of the previous one, in particular the characters still acting like morons who probably couldn't tie their shoes if you put them under the smallest amount of pressure. For example, their acting-captain Christopher Oram (Billy Crudup) ignores the logical reasons presented to him against going to this new world from his second-in-command Daniels (Katherine Waterston), like how this could be trap. You would think the first danger flag would pop up when the alien starts to sing "Country Road," but our brave captain pushes to stupidity and beyond.
Part of the reason this is big deal for me is because my favorite film in this franchise is the first film, "Alien." It is one of the smartest horror movies of all time, where the actions of every single make logical sense and you can sympathize with every single one of them, including the alien itself. That movie prided itself on showing just how versatile and cunning humans can be in the face of imminent danger, never sacrificing one bit of intelligence for the sake of cheap horror.
Yet here we are, watching a couple make out in the shower while a monster is on the loose, or seeing our captain just stare at a deadly alien pod like nothing bad has ever happened to him. These moments don't happen nearly as often as they did in "Prometheus," but still enough that the lazy writing pokes through every once in a while.
That being said, the best part of "Covenant" was Michael Fassbender, playing two androids, the supportive yet rough Walter, and the megalomaniacal David, returning from the previous movie. It is fascinating how different these two are, yet still so much alike. They're both devoted, but to vastly diverse things - Walter is programmed to be loyal and to follow his duties, while David is programmed to be man's greatest achievement, something better than we could be; perfect. You can see the logical jump the android creators took, going from the life form that sees us as inferior creatures to the slave-like creatures meant to preform the tasks we cannot.
Fassbender steals the show as David, mostly because we just want to see how far his hatred of other beings goes. He seems to programmed to respect all life forms, showing everyone kindness and answering everyone's questions, but his new personality and ego trump those values in the end to show what he wants to be - a creator. To give the universe something new and to make his mark.
And hey, we actually get to see some aliens doing what they do best. That's more than I can say about "Prometheus."
Overall, "Alien: Covenant" certainly isn't a bad experience and an improvement from many of the previous Alien movies, with some great acting from Fassbender, Waterston, and Crudup. But it still gives in to many horror movie clichés and tropes and ends up dumbing down most of its cast for the sake of moving the story forward, which is disappointing to see from the creator of "Alien."
Final Grade: B-
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