I thought this film was soundly better than Prometheus and far and away the best sequel since Aliens. Yes, it still has dumb moments, but nothing as slap-you-in-the-face stupid as a scientist reaching out to an hostile looking alien worm
hissing like a cobra. The dumb moments here aren't that far removed from the usual horror movie cliches even the old films had (like "I'm going in this dark area alone for a while"). The only part that came close to Prometheus levels of dumb was the captain following David into the egg cave, then
staring into an egg. If he wasn't ready to shoot David after discovering that he's been engineering these things, he should have at least been prepared to blast the eggs on sight.
The film also doesn't bullshit nearly as much. Prometheus hinted at these mysteries that in retrospect it clearly had no real plans or answers for; there was no substance to any of that. Rewatching Prometheus wouldn't yield any revelations after this film; David's motivations are clearer, but that was already pretty well established. What we saw in that movie is all it was, and it seems like an even weaker film now that the sequel didn't bring anything forward other than David. Covenant is a self contained movie that gives you everything it wants to in its runtime; it doesn't lead you on with bullshit mysteries it doesn't intend to solve. For that alone it's a much stronger film. It also has a more decisive ending instead of just leaving it completely open again, while still keeping it vague enough for a sequel.
I also don't get the people saying this is just a retread of the Alien movies. It borrows elements from them, but of course it does; it's an Alien movie. It's got some similar scenarios, like another alien getting blown out the airlock, but it's not the same story. I didn't feel like the Xenomorphs were just there for fanservice either. The movie is using them in a different way.
My big complaint is that the characters are mostly weak. By the end, you still barely even know the people who are getting killed and most of them are a few lines away from being "extras." Prometheus had that too- the crew that took down the Engineer ship was barely a factor before that scene at all. Compared the the crew in the original or the marines in Aliens, where every death meant something to you because you knew or at least
recognized the character, this is a major step down.
I think it's better than people are saying. It's not as good as the first two films, but who would possibly expect it to be. I went in with no feelings one way or the other , either as an Alien film or a Prometheus sequel, and it exceeded my expectations.
Really disappointed.
The worst part is that the garbage David story line and what he did to Shaw basically makes almost everything from Prometheus not matter, I won't be able to enjoy it anymore. Nobody in that movie actually made it out even though Shaw had a hopeful ending.
I'm going to have to pretend Covenant doesn't exist just like I pretend Alien 3 doesn't exist (what they did to Newt is even more unforgivable than Shaw and also makes Aliens not matter).
Shaw's fate was always a little iffy because David was clearly not on the level; he did kill her husband after all. It shouldn't have been expected that she would have been safe with him. Aliens was different because there was no reason to expect anything other than a happy ending; it felt like Ripley had earned her life back by facing her trauma, which made Alien 3 even more of a dick of a film for throwing that in the trash. And Shaw's death wasn't as meaningless as just "dying in a crash" arbitrarily, as if just to get her out of the film, which is what the deaths in Alien 3 felt like. She contributed a lot to David's character and sent the distress message that triggered the whole story.
Everything was telegraphed very early so I was never surprised and I don't like what it did to the Scott Alien universe. I'm pretty depressed.
