ALIEN: COVENANT Review: Surfing with the Alien

Ridley Scott drags Prometheus to Hell

Alien Covenant is a film that starts mean and gets increasingly nasty as it goes along. Ridley Scott has grabbed Prometheus – his 2012 prequel to Alien – by the throat, stuffed a Xenomorph inside and wrung what is a pretty decent amount of gothic hammer-horror out of the result. But he also can’t shake his real interest – chiefly his interest in the fascinating android David (played by Michael Fassbender) and the weightier themes and pondering that come with him. The result is…weird to say the least and there’s some good stuff to dig out of the film, even though it’s hard to shake the feeling that Alien Covenant isn’t quite the sum of its nightmarish, screaming parts.

Alien Covenant, for most of its run time, focuses on the crew of the Covenant who start the film heading off to a planet that they hope to colonise. Whilst the crew lies in hyper-sleep, Walter (another android also played by Michael Fassbender) tends to the ship and oversees its various functions. A Neutrino burst wakes the crew from hyper-sleep early, killing a lot of the colonists in the process as well as the captain of the main crew (James Franco) who is also the husband of our main protagonist, Daniels (Katherine Waterston). After waking, they discover a signal pointing to a nearby planet that appears even more inhabitable than their original destination. They set down on the planet surface (against Daniels’ reservations) and things quickly start going south.

I won’t go too much further for fear of ruining the rest of the film, but bear in mind that this really only scratches the surface of what the film has to offer.

It’s fair to say that Covenant dives much greater into its ‘Alien’ roots than its 2012 predecessor. Whereas Prometheus was more ill-defined in its horror elements, Alien goes back to basics with the original Xenomorph and a whole lot of other nasties. That original beastie doesn’t show up until the film’s final act but there’s plenty of Alien-esque horror along the way (such as the sequence with the first Neomorph). We also get Ridley Scott capitalising on some of the imagery he set up in Prometheus, which leads to more gothic horror and imagery than other Alien films have managed (the occasional visual did give off an almost Bloodborne kind of vibe).

In fact, it seems as though Covenant is a more explicit attempt at B-Movie horror than some of its predecessors, perhaps even than the original. There’s a shower scene at the end that, if not for the super-charged budget, feels like it would be right at home in the kind of movie you might find at a drive-in. The horror scenes are mostly excellently constructed (to be honest, the whole movie is well made), with a personal highlight being the moment where David attempts to reason with a Neomorph whilst the crew’s captain circles in the background. Having seen these creatures maniacally tear people apart, seeing one float stilly on the spot is incredibly unnerving.

That 'Alien' vibe is rammed home even further by Katherine Waterston’s character ‘Daniels’. Whilst Prometheus’ Shaw didn’t really make for a particularly compelling protagonist, Daniels is much more empathetic. Whilst she starts the film right off the bat in emotional distress (unlike Shaw or Ripley who have to work up to that), Daniels gradually stands out as one of the most capable crewmembers as the film’s madness continues to escalate.

From this, Covenant earns its Alien moniker. It can feel feel as though the film might benefit from an even greater emphasis on this at times, with the film’s horror suffering from a bit of stop-and-start during the middle of the film that could be smoother. The final alien sequence is also pretty uninteresting, with it being essentially a rehash of the finale of the 1979 movie. On the whole, though, the horror sequences make for some arresting stuff.

However, that’s really only half the film, with the other half looks to continue the kind of sci-fi that was pondered in Prometheus. What this means, amongst other things, is a big whopping return of Micheal Fassbender’s android, David.

Despite Daniels’ position as our main protagonist, the whole film really belongs to David (though ‘protagonist’ is certainly not the word I’d use to describe him). He doesn’t really show up until the around halfway in (save for the opening scene) but he looms over the entire film. He’s Covenant’s link back to Prometheus, which means we get more philosophising over the nature of creation, but it’s handled much more interestingly here. Where Prometheus asked its questions and then farted them under the rug whilst the film drove off the rails, Covenant takes the theme of creation and funnels it largely through David’s character. No spoilers as to how, but it actually feeds quite well into the film’s horror aspect, giving the film its twisted edge. We also get more of a look into David’s motivations, which highlights a pretty crucial difference between his character in Prometheus and Covenant: in Prometheus, he was interesting. In Covenant, he’s also horrifying.

Of course Michael Fassbender also plays another android called Walter. Walter is really designed in response to David – an android with many of the same functions as David, but without his ability to create. Their interactions form some of Covenant’s highlights: clear discussion of the film’s central themes as well as some fascinatingly disturbing character work.

This all makes for great stuff and it’s what keeps Covenant interesting and open to discussion after you’ve walked out. However whilst there are a lot of things that Alien Covenant does right, there a number of issues that threaten to bring the film back down to more questionable Prometheus levels of quality *.

The first of these missteps comes from the film’s secondary characters. Out of all the characters, five make a decent impression: David, Walter, Daniels, Tennessee (played by Danny McBride) and the new captain, Christopher (Billy Crudup). The first three I’ve gone over, whilst Tenessee gets by on the virtues of being played by Danny McBride and the captain gets given a relatively interesting set of personality traits that maybe aren’t as dramatized as well as it could be (although I’m flagging this point as something that might change on a second viewing). As for everyone else, well when most of them died I found myself wondering who they were which probably tells you all you need to know. They don’t seem as inconsistent and bizarre as the cast of Prometheus, but they often amount to little more than glorified props/red shirts.

More difficult a problem, however, is the way the film attempts to bridge the gap between Alien and Prometheus, partially in narrative but mostly in style. David serves as the key link here and his scenes are largely terrific, but his philosophical pondering can occassionally clash with the hammer-house horror of the rest of the film. For example: there’s a scene where a character has just been impregnated with what looks like the classic chestburster, whilst David looks over him. Upon waking up, he asks David what he believes in. It leads to a pretty good punchline, but I couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t freaking out a lot more. I get how it’s linked to his character and the movie’s theme, but that character should be way more upset.

This occasionally makes it feel as though Alien Covenant is two different films that it can’t decide between. That’s not to say that film doesn’t work and there are times where these two aspects actually slot together well, but I couldn’t tell you with much confidence that the film totally succeeds on this front.

Those two problems feed through most of the film, to the extent that the final product is deflated as a result. If I’m being honest, coming out of Alien Covenant felt a lot like coming out of Prometheus, in that I wasn’t totally sure whether I liked it or not. I think in the long run Covenant will emerge as the better film, maybe even to the extent of being a good one. In fact the last couple of days or so of me mulling it over have been actually fairly kind to it. At the very least, as was the case with Prometheus, Alien Covenant is one of those films that you should absolutely see once. It’s visually stunning, well made and kind of fascinating. Go check it out.

Verdict:

★★★½

*Just to be clear, whilst I don’t think Prometheus is a good film, in a way I kind of like it. It’s pretty spectacular and certainly well made, which makes the stupid characters and go-nowhere philosophy extra annoying, but it’s one of those films that I still find interesting.

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