Alien: Covenant

The 446th film I have seen in theaters…

The vagina monster returns!

spoilers to follow

In the early 22nd century, the USS Covenant, a colony ship, makes it’s way across the stars to a distant world to give mankind a new home. Enroute, a solar event causes some damage. While the crew is effecting repairs, they intercept a garbled message, John Denver’s “Country Road” from a part of space no human has ever entered.

They fly to the source to check it out and there accidentally unleash the “Neomorph”, a new version of the alien we all know and love. They come across an android, David, who shelters them from the monsters. They eventually discover that David is not a helpful as he may initially seem, and they are in a fight for their lives as our old friend, the Xenomorph hunts their asses.

Katherine Waterston, yes- the daughter of Sam, continues the acting tradition. I was not that impressed by her in “Fantastic Beasts” but she more than made up for it here. She is no Ellen Ripley, but who is. Her Daniels was cut from the same cloth though, and she did a good job.

Michael Fassbender, God’s gift to us acting fans, returns to the series as Walter, the android assigned to the Covenant. He is more stable than previous models and is one of the good guys.

Michael Fassbender also returns as David 8, the fuckin’ psycopath from “Prometheus”. David has been very busy in the decade since the events of the previous film. He and Dr. Shaw flew off at the end of Prometheus to find the homeworld of the “Engineers”. Well, they found it all right. It is the setting of this film. Enroute, David killed Shaw and upon arriving at the world, unleashed the “bio-weapon” on the Engineers, killing all non botanical life on the planet. He sets up camp in their old central building and spends a decade experimenting. His goal is to bio-engineer the weapon into the ultimate life form. David engineers the face huggers. He is the father of the Xenomorph. Awesome. Fassbender is amazing as always. I love this guy.

Danny McBride steps away from comedy to play Tennessee, the pilot of the Covenant. He starts out his normal self, but as the stakes are raised, he seriously steps up his acting abilities. I think he is one to watch in the future. He has the tools necessary to be a great actor.

Doctor Manhattan himself, Billy Crudup plays Oram, the Captain of the Covenant. When the original captain dies in an accident, Oram steps into his seat. He brings an interesting undercurrent to the story by being a man of faith who is often at odds with his scientifically minded crew mates. If you’ve seen the trailers, then you know things do not end well for the guy. hehe.

Briefly returning in the opening flashback is Guy Pierce as Peter Weyland. It is just a small role, but it set the tone very quickly that this is indeed a sequel to Prometheus.

Seen above in the short film prologue to Covenant, Noomi Rapace returns as Dr Shaw. VERY briefly. lol.

Seen above, from another prologue short, is James Franco as Captain Branson. His role- VERY SHORT! Maybe not as short as Noomi, though.

That above is the Neomorph. Instead of the typical face hugger, chest bursting birth we all know and love, this creature infects by way to spores. When it is born, well…

Pure nightmare fuel is what that is.

And we also our old friend the Xenomorph. Missed ya buddy!

Well, what’s verdict?

It was good. It was a continuation of Prometheus with a good dose of classic alien mixed it. A lot of people are shitting on this, I will not join them. I am one of those precious few that loved Prometheus and was happy to see the story continue. It had enough of the Alien DNA to keep me happy while it took the story in a different direction. Covenant follows suit, but definitely strays further into the traditional Alien territory. The story was good, the actors were great, the Aliens were scary, and the gore was truly skeevy.

This is not the best Alien film, but it is a damn sight better than most of them. A good movie. 7.5/10

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