{"id":4347,"date":"2017-05-19T07:04:20","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T14:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=4347"},"modified":"2017-05-19T07:07:54","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T14:07:54","slug":"review-alien-covenant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=4347","title":{"rendered":"Review: ALIEN: COVENANT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AlienC1\"\"nofixbutton\"\u201cAlien: Covenant\u201d is a cheap, obvious horror prequel to Ridley Scott\u2019s 1979 \u201cAlien.\u201d\u00a0 It fits into his canon of violent science fiction entries, but this film lessens the legacy of the franchise. Of course, let\u2019s face it, the fleecing of the mythology occurred in 2004 with the release of something called \u201cAVP: Alien vs. Predator.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cAlien\u201d was never meant to be Shakespeare.<\/p>\n

Following up on Scott\u2019s ambitious 2012 film \u201cPrometheus,\u201d \u201cCovenant\u201d follows a group of colonists, also referred to a terra-formers (or is it \u201cformars?\u201d), on a deep space mission to inhabit a planet.\u00a0 We\u2019re dumped into their world with little explanation, but given our familiarity with the franchise, we are expected to immediately understand how things work.\u00a0 Thousands of colonists rest in state of suspended animation as the ship silently and ominously drifts to its ultimate destination.<\/p>\n

The day-to-day maintenance is performed both by the ship\u2019s computer, or Mother (voiced here by Lorelei King) from previous films, and a human-like android named Walter (Michael Fassbender in a dual role).\u00a0 The masterstroke of \u201cPrometheus,\u201d if there was one, was the creation of David (also played by Fassbender), an intuitive and very curious construct of Weyland Industries.\u00a0 In an extended prologue, we get the Frankenstein introduction to this character as Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) debates ethics with his creation.\u00a0 Thankfully, these dalliances into weightier questions give way to the familiar horror chaos that is \u201cCovenant\u2019s\u201d selling point.<\/p>\n

When something happens to the ship, the main crew are pulled out of deep sleep to effectuate repairs.\u00a0 This leads them to divert from their established course, which naturally is not a good idea.<\/p>\n

The crew is played by an impressive and eclectic grouping of actors.\u00a0 While Billy Crudup takes center stage in the captain\u2019s position, and Danny McBride gets to share his knowledge of John Denver\u2019s musical catalogue, the star of the show is clearly Katherine Waterston.\u00a0 By slipping into a Ripley type role, we get the inevitable retread of certain beats of the first film with understandably less effective results.\u00a0 Still, Fassbender manages to be creepy and heroic by playing two androids with slightly different programming.<\/p>\n

\u201cCovenant\u201d works best as a straight up horror film set in the vacuum of space and on a distant and dangerous planet.\u00a0 But Scott and his team want it to be a cut above.\u00a0 This means that we get large passages of exposition where characters ruminate on the virtues and interpretations of\u00a0 Shelley and Byron and the meaning of all things.\u00a0 It\u2019s very uneven, especially when the script attempts to balance the heady, intellectual stuff along side schlock.\u00a0 And I mean true schlock, just watch the trailer for that teased shower scene.<\/p>\n

The killings come in fast and furious bursts and some new creatures are introduced that are effective.\u00a0 But it all adds up to very little.\u00a0 Clearly, Scott wants to make a better and important film, but he is forced to also make a cheesy, entertaining one at the same time.\u00a0 Such a thing is difficult to pull off.<\/p>\n

Viewers who are excitedly awaiting the long-gestating sequel to \u201cBlade Runner\u201d should note that even that film, which has seen various cuts and revisions since its theatrical release, was considered a box office failure initially (having opened the week after \u201cET\u201d).\u00a0 Getting the right mix of story, characters, meaning, and thrills and chills is hard, elusive, and a thing of magic.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there is little magic in \u201cAlien: Covenant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott can’t find the magic in cheap, obvious horror prequel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4351,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347\/revisions\/4351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}