I went to see this last night, and I have to say I was pretty disappointed with it. I will probably want to watch it again and mull over it to say for sure (sometimes I have rewatched films and found them much better the second time around), but for now I felt it was really weak.
For the record I quite liked Prometheus, whilst the story and characters were often seen as flawed when scrutinised, I felt the movie still delivered a lot to like. The visuals were fantastic, the premise was intriguing and draws you in quite quickly, David was fascinating and a lot of the movie delivered a sense of mystery. The film from start to finish attempts to be grandiose and philosophical, and whilst it often falls short of delivering this, it at least asks some interesting questions, and gives the views some interesting ideas to think about (namely the whole Engineer - Human - David relationship). So whilst it isn't always successful, I at least appreciated what it tried to achieve, and some of the interesting things it did have to say. I also loved the way the movie tried to tear away from being an Alien film, instead trying to cover new ground by pushing the series mythology outward, opposed to retreading worn out areas. The ending also had me quite excited and intrigued, as it teased a sequel which seemed to head in a direction I could not anticipate, in my head I was thinking "Where are they going?, What kind of place awaits them?, How will the movie handle just having 2 characters?" and so on, so I couldn't wait to see where they took that initial set up.
So coming to Alien: Covenant I expected to really love it, only to come away from it disappointed, I actually think Prometheus was a better film. Right of the bat, I found the set up and premise of the movie to be somewhat slow, whilst the initial scene with David and Weyland was somewhat interesting, the opening seems to just exist to push the story forward towards the planet. I kinda got the impression they tried wanted to replicate the same sort of cold opening Alien had, but in this it just comes across as somewhat dull. In Alien it works because the movie has a sense of mystery and the audience do not quite know what to expect, this allows the movie to slowly build tension and dread, right through to the end. In Covenant, we know what to expect so the beginning just kinda fell flat for me.
In terms of characters, I feel they were arguably weaker than those in Prometheus. Whilst I quite liked Katherine Waterston's and Danny McBrides performances, I felt like I never really got to know them as characters. Billy Crudup's character seemed to show the promise of being interesting and 3 dimensional, but the movie doesn't really spend the time to take his character anywhere other than face hugger chow. Whilst Michael Fassbender gave great performances as Walter and David, I felt Walter wasn't particularly interesting due to the nature of his character (a less flawed version of David), and really only seemed to exist to service the scenes with David. David whilst still quite compelling, seemed a lot less interesting this time around. Outside a few scenes which still show him to be a bit of an enigma (such as the one where he releases the virus on the engineers), he for the most part seems predictable this time around. The rest of the characters just seem to exist to be munched on.
With regards to the aliens, they were just there to provide gore and horror. Whilst there were a couple of good scenes, such the back bursting scene, and the scene where the neomorph attacks the woman in the cave. They didn't really do anything new or surprising with them, they almost never provide much in the way of tension, and they certainly are no longer 'alien'. They feel tired and overdone at this point, without an ounce of what made them interesting in the first place. The movie doesn't even really let you be surprised by them any more, for example, I quite liked the scene where the neomorph confronts the woman in the cave before biting her head off, but the audience sees it coming because the film telegraphs it earlier. I also quite liked the way they showed the world from the perspective of an alien, but again, it squanders the idea and doesn't do anything interesting with it.
Visually the film seems like a step down from Ridley Scott's previous movies. Whilst there are occasionally some inventive scenes such as the scene when the airlock opens, and some of the space sections at the start, the rest of it feels pretty weak. This was one area in particular which I thought was a safe bet, so I was quite surprised to see this take such as large step down. With regards to the film score, I did quite like the use of the original soundtrack, though I feel they relied maybe a bit too heavily on it, which kinda strips the movies soundtrack of its own identity.
Overall I enjoyed it, but I can't help but see the film as squandered potential. The set up from Prometheus was squandered, the themes and any philosophy just felt really half assed, the film is devoid of significant tension, and whilst there are a few good gruesome horror moments much of it is comprised of things we have seen time and again. The film tries to course correct the series back into full on Alien prequel mode, so that it can cover the same ground as before, whilst removing any shred of mystery that remained with the Aliens. I came out of the theatre thinking how it is not really a movie I watch again, which just feels crazy as I am a huge fan of the series in general. I will eventually watch it again, if only to try and solidify my thoughts on it.
