Hey hey hey, if it ain't the 2012 movie that -- next to The Dark Knight Rises -- most of GAF just loves to shit on as the worst thing since rotten bread for some benign reason, which doesn't make much sense considering that stuff like Suicide Squad exists in comparison.
Anyway, the marketing for Alien: Covenant is in full-swing at this point and in the acknowledgement of that, I figured I should pop it back into the Blu-ray player. Now, I hadn't seen the film in years -- saw it in the theater during senior high school and then watched it again on said Blu-ray again a little later on. Being already a big fan of the first Alien back then and that I was thirsty for Ridley Scott to make a sci-fi movie again, I was actually pretty enthusiastic after seeing it. I think I mentally gave it a solid B+/A- by late teen standards. Then times changed and my tastes and judgement on films matured a little more after.
But even then, despite being aware of that change, I never really understood why the hell this movie gets an insane amount of flak around these parts. Well, I actually kinda do now thanks to how Star Wars gets talked about here lately. Either way, now that the rose-tinted goggles are gone, let's get into how I found it this time.
First off, I'm not gona sugarcoat this: the characters are as dumb as bricks, especially as they are scientists. I don't think I even need to reiterate the silly decisions they make in this movie considering how they've been a butt of the joke on the internet for sometime now (why are they running in a straight line? why the fuck would you touch that thing? etc.). That said, they're not unlikable -- not the most compelling set of characters out there, yes, but for all their stupidity, I never found them that insufferable or "broken." They are pretty par for the course in terms of the genre; the movie just did a terrible job at masking how run-of-the-mill they were or better yet, adding more to that.
In terms of everything else in the writing department, I thought the movie was on point. Sure, could've gone the extra mile, but I think it did well enough of a job in exploring its themes -- by mainstream sci-fi standards at least -- of how we are so anxious to know more about how we were plopped onto this rock and why such a question is just a.) kinda irrelevant at this point of civilization and b.) it's going to bite us in the ass if we try going beyond our reach to know that. It's a straightforward approach, but not too much that it lacks depth. Admittedly, however, I would have rather had a movie that doubled down on these themes, and that could have gave us a little more "cosmic/psychological horror" as a result rather than run of the mill alien-slasher. You just get super limited by that set-up when tackling those themes. It also highlights how more focused the original Alien was and how it didn't need such frivolities to get its own messages across.
Screenplay stuff aside, this movie is fucking gorgeous guys.Listen to that music. Look at those sets. Also, I can't find it on YouTube, but the opening credits has some damn beautiful cinematography work that's also persistent throughout the rest of the movie. The only strike I have against it is that the editing fumbles at certain points, but everything else audiovisual-wise is ace. You can't deny that Scott really has one hell of an eye for detail when it comes to this and that attention alone really elevates it above much of the other pop-corn flicks of that year in this regard.
So, when you take all that into account, what do you get?
You get a pretty solid sci-fi movie. That's about it. Nothing revolutionary and it's got its fair share of flaws, but not the piece of horrible cowdung many make it out to be on here. It's a B at best, and a C+ at worst. I would love to re-hear people's cases as to why they think it's that bad though.
Maybe I should re-watch Skyfall too eh?
