ALIEN:
COVENANT
I
am not someone you would call overly emotional, when it comes to
anticipating things. For example I rarely get worked up over
presents I am given at Christmas by my friends or family (even though
I am extremely grateful, but from my reaction it would be hard to
tell). This also is true about movies; even though I live and die
cinema, you would be hard pressed to tell as I rarely show any
excitement. Something very strange happened to me in May of 2017, as
I found myself more and more anticipating the release of Ridley
Scott's “Alien: Covenant”. As the day built, (I saw it after
work), I couldn't stop talking about the film and how I was going to
see it and when the time came and I was actually sitting in my seat
in the cinema, I realised I was genuinely excited to see the next
chapter in the xenomorph saga. Two hours later, that excitement was
totally crushed, as the film did not even come close to my
anticipation of it.
Like
most people, I am a big fan of Ridley Scott's original “Alien”
and the claustrophobic terror he created within that film. The alien
of the film was genuinely terrifying and I was hoping that the new
film would be a return to something like that. Instead I got a big,
loud and bombastic film that is stripped bare of any and all
subtlety. There was just no build up to anything and everything that
happened, happened big. There is a reason that there is a saying
that “less is more”. My biggest problem with the film though was
the characters, and how we did not get to care about any of them.
All of them are interchangeable because none of them are given time
to create their own identity. In the original film, we got to spend
time with the crew, watch them interact and even share a meal or two.
There is none of that in “Alien: Covenant” (although the trailer
does show that scenes like this were indeed shot). Also, character
motivations in the film defied belief. A lot of people criticised
the characters actions in Ridley Scott's “Prometheus” as dumb,
but compared to the ones in “Alien: Covenant”, they are bloody
geniuses. The reasoning on why they decide to check out this other
planet when they are heading to a perfectly good planet already, it
just does not make any sense at all. And it was this early in the
film, that it had lost me.
A
big problem with “Alien: Covenant” is that it does not know what
it wants to be or who it wants to please, as you can see that it
wants to tell its own, new original story but feels obliged to give
some sort of fan service in regards to the xenomorphs. However, it
goes the totally wrong way about it by essentially redoing scenes
that have been done a hundred times before, but in a worse way. This
is never more apparent than in the “chest burster” scene. The
same scene is in the original “Alien” and it is absolutely
terrifying and has become the iconic moment of that film. The scene
in “Alien: Covenant”, first of all, lacks any suspense because we
know what is happening to the guy, and second, the actual bursting
from the chest this time is done via substandard CGI and it looks
terrible. In fact it is worse than that, it looks lazy. That isn't
the only instance where CGI has ruined something that was once done
practically as the xenomorphs themselves are mostly captured via CGI,
and they just do not have the weight they once had.
Man
I find talking about this film frustrating. Now I was talking about
how you can tell the film wanted to go out on an original path, but
that path is just not interesting at all. It is obvious that Scott
is more interested in Michael Fassbender's A.I character, David,
rather than the aliens but he is such a boring character. And as the
film goes along it becomes more and more about him. This is fine if
that is the story Ridley Scott wanted to tell, but to then title the
film “Alien: Covenant” as opposed to “Prometheus 2”, it comes
across as a little bit of a cheat to get in the audience. And
speaking of “Prometheus”, a lot of the good that was done in that
film, is totally undone by this film, especially in regards to Noomi
Rapace's character.
There
is more I could say about this film, (like what the hell was up with
Katherine Waterston's hair???) but I am getting frustrated sitting
here thinking about it again. I will say that it is not the worst
film I have ever seen; Ridley Scott knows how to craft a good looking
film, but it is certainly underwhelming and yes, I would have to say
that it is the worst “Alien” film so far (not counting the ones
versus the Predators). I still love the xenomorphs themselves, their
design is forever iconic, but the magic and terror of them is forever
gone, sadly.
“Alien:
Covenant” was a crushing disappointment.
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