Joshua Drake’s review published on Letterboxd:
Alien: Covenant is the newest film in the Alien franchise (the sixth film, if you don't count the two Alien vs. Predator movies, the eighth installment if you do, like I do) and is once again directed by Ridley Scott, the third time he has direction an Alien film.
This film serves as a sequel to Prometheus and another controversial prequel to "Alien".
STORY/PLOT:
Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, members (Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup) of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think to be an uncharted paradise. While there, they meet David (Michael Fassbender), the synthetic survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition. The mysterious world soon turns dark and dangerous when a hostile alien life-form forces the crew into a deadly fight for survival.
Now, I defended Prometheus and I was excited to see how would they follow it up. And what did I get? Another movie that was on my most anticipated movies of this year, another great Alien movie and another divisive one at that. I swear, people are just hating on this movie because it's a prequel. It is not that bad as everyone says it is.
It's certainly not a perfect movie at that, but I have to say, it's a hell of a lot of fun.
I will give you my positives and my negatives.
THE PROS:
1. Ridley Scot's direction is still great. The man still got it.
2. The return of Xenomorphs is freaking awesome. It was so cool to see the Alien Queen again.
3. Michael Fassbender's dual performance as David/Walter is freaking great.
4. Katherine Waterston as the Ripley-like character, Dany Branson, is really great and I really enjoyed her performance in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them last year.
5. Some of the other supporting cast members including Billy Crudup, Jussie Smollett, Carmen Ejogo, Danny McBride, Callie Hernandez are also pretty good.
6. The music is great. Score is done this time by Jed Kurzel, with original themes by Jerry Goldsmith and Marc Streteinfeld from both "Alien" and "Prometheus".
7. Darius Wolszki's cinematography is really beautiful. The movie looks beautifully well shot.
8. The visual effects and set design are also really great and looks impressive for the budget this movie has.
9. The film has another interesting story to tell.
10. The kills are inventive with some of the supporting cast members in the group.
11. The film is definitely a return to form for Ridley Scott and the Alien franchise.
But just because the film has great things I liked, doesn't mean that I don't have some issues with this movie.
THE CONS:
1. Some of the characters are not developed fully enough and they could've had more developed.
2. The movie does end up becoming a little confusing, but as someone who watched and loved "Prometheus", I can get over it.
3. James Franco's character gets a terrible death scene and he could've had a better death scene.
4. The film does go into slasher film territory in a few areas.
5. Some of the CGI on the Alien Xenomorphs looks a little 50/50 and they could've been cleaned up a bit more.
6. There are some scenes that could've been in the film or some things that could have been explained a lot more, like what happened to Noomi Rapace's character in Prometheus
7. The movie does get a little boring in some parts.
8. There could've been a little more development of Dany.
Despite some flaws that I have, I can simply sit here and say that "Alien: Covenant" is another great prequel to Alien, another great entry in the Alien franchise and a great sequel to "Prometheus" and I'm looking forward to see what they do next in the third film in the Alien prequel series.
Grade: B+
