Alien: Covenant (2017) - Review
- Sam Bateson
- Apr 23, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Jan 20, 2023
Director: Ridley Scott | Written by John Logan, Dante Harper | 122m
(Possible spoilers below)
Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created, with Alien: Covenant, a new chapter in the groundbreaking ALIEN franchise. The crew of the colony ship Covenant, bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world. When they uncover a threat beyond their imagination, they must attempt a harrowing escape.
The trailer above dropped on December 25th, 2016. In the hours that followed, I must have watched and rewatched it dozens, dozens of dozens, of times. Yes! thought I, This is the Alien movie I've been waiting for! - it promised spine-tingle terror, blood up to your neck, chestbursters, close-quarters horror, all without the high-minded trappings that made Prometheus such a slog. As the months passed and more trailers dropped, we got a glimpse of the big-chap himself, in all his toothy, double-jawed glory. The Alien nerd inside me blossomed into this thing that wanted nothing more than to sit, alone, in a darkened theatre and watch it with the screen all to myself so that I could bask in the gory goodness of a director who at last seemed to have recaptured what I loved about the original whilst pushing the series in bold new directions.
And then the film came out. Crushing disappointment.
I remember the screening vividly. Somehow, I and a couple of friends had managed to blag tickets to see the movie a day early (we later learned they were actually tickets for a Prometheus/Covenant back-to-back double feature) - I was going to see Covenant the day before it opened, before anyone else in the world got to see it! I sat, giddy with excitement, as a portion of the Jerry Goldsmith score from the original film swelled over the opening titles; I marvelled at the visual splendour that was on show, and yes, I revelled in the bloody deaths most of the characters fell victim to. But by the time the same musical cue swelled again and the screen faded to black, I turned to my friend, who wore this great grin on his face, and I said the words I wish I didn't feel compelled to say: I don't think I liked it. Cue lengthy discussions on the drive back.
Where Covenant blindsided me was with the sense that I'd been tricked; I'd been lured in by all of this great trailers that promised the ditching of the Prometheus baggage and a return to form for a series that seemed to be floundering; and for the first third of the movie, that's exactly what I got; a crew of colonists (whose members include Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir and Michael Fassbender - more on him later) land on a mysterious planetoid in pursuit of a ghostly signal. There, they find a dead world, with no birds in the sky or animals in the bushes. This is an Earth-like world, but different. This is Alien, through and through; the Covenant is a dark, grimy ship filled with somewhat believable characters; the planetoid is like a haunted forest. The fun really begins when unsuspecting members of the entourage become infected with spore-like motes; cue the body horror, as a nail-biting buildup over a frenetic, atmospheric score by Jed Kurzel culminates in the 'birth' (term used loosely) of a pair of Neomorphs (a sort of pale, squishy precursor to the Xenomorph) that promptly terrorise our heroes. All excellent, exciting fare; and then David turns up, our Android villain from Prometheus and stops the film dead. It's at that moment you check your ticket, which, sure, says Alien: Covenant, but may as well say Alien 6: Prometheus 2.
The horror and the action sit on the back burner for a while as David hurries our colonists into an abandoned city, built by the Engineers, the humanoid villains of the previous film and proceeds to do a bit of an exposition dump; he explains what has happened since he and Shaw jetted off on their galactic holiday at the end of Prometheus, and how the planet around them has become devoid of life, all the while our heroes try to make contact with the Covenant in orbit so that they can be rescued.
Michael Fassbender pulls double duties here, reprising his role as David whilst also portraying newcomer Walter, the resident Android of the Covenant. In his David guise, he continues to stun with a performance that's sublime as it is terrifying - you might even forgive his Iggy Pop impersonation. Walter is his polar opposite; where David is vain, conniving and human-like, Walter has had his personality stripped from him; he is functional, and unambiguous; he's there to do the heavy lifting, not query the existence of the object. Honestly, this film could have just been the two characters sat talking and it would have been greatly entertaining; in fact, we get an all-too brief teaser of what that might have been like in the form of a one-shot scene involving David teaching Walter how to play the flute. It's an erotically charged scene that, in the simplest terms, is just a couple of minutes of Michael Fassbender playing with himself, but it is one of the most sublime sequences I've ever seen in an Alien movie and shows real intelligence in a series that's rapidly devolved into stupidity.
Watch me. I'll do the fingering. Yes, that's an actual line of dialogue...
Once this interlude concludes, and David does a bit more expositing whilst the characters mope about a while and do some clue-finding, the action quickly starts up again; once the Neomorph catches up to our heroes, it's a nonstop race to the finish; David is revealed to be up to no good after all, Shaw is seen again (in a much reviled 'cameo' that I think is more brave than offensive, but that's up to you...), there's Facehuggers and Xenomorphs, acid blood, a fake-out ending - pure Alien.
Here's my problem; when I first saw the film, I was disappointed, and that's because I expected Covenant to double down on the horror and tone down the Prometheus. Instead what we got was an Alien film with a Prometheus film squeezed into the middle. Once David returned, I fully expected Ridley Scott's voice to emerge from the speakers and apologise for Prometheus for forty minutes, and that's essentially what the middle act does; it tries to both apologise for Prometheus and clarify it's connection to Alien, but it fails at doing both. This confusing amalgamation mired my appreciation of the film at the time, but as I'll get onto later, it was a passing annoyance.
The same praise for Prometheus applies here; the world is beautifully shot and populated with excellent actors who really cement their positions as top-tier Alien characters, particularly Waterston, Fassbender and McBride (who provides some much needed comic relief). Waterston as Daniels capably takes up the mantle of Alien Female Heroine whose husband meets an untimely demise before he's even out of the hyper-sleep chamber. Given that they're on a colonisation mission, this leaves Daniels without purpose, at least in her eyes, and it lends an emotional weight to her character that's more relatable than Shaw's 'shattered faith' storyline (which, I should point out, is no less valid a story arc). Generally, the characters are more believable than in the previous outing even if most of them are still just there to die grisly deaths; a few are still paper thin, and even the emotional stakes of them all playing couples does little to make me care for them. I can't even tell you some of their names. But here they are less artificial than Prometheus, less like stock characters and it's a welcome change; whereas before, the characters were wooden, stilted and distractingly awkward, here they appear to have genuine chemistry. Their reactions are more genuine, there is more levity, whilst the grim moments have more resonance; maybe it's because they're allowed to say 'fuck' thanks to the 18 rating this time around; nobody just says oh my God when an alien creature has just ripped your friend to shreds (you listening, Prometheus?).
David in particular is a superb character. Here he is more rounded and menacing; he's been written as the arch-villain of the prequels and it's a position that works well. Continuing the theme of life and creation, David has been trapped alone on this planet for ten years with nothing but genetic experimentation to keep him company; his beautiful bestiary is a grisly shrine to his past successes, all a link in the chain to create the perfect organism. With the arrival of the colonists, he has the final piece of the puzzle. What David represents is a villain that rivals even the Xenomorph in legendary Alien creations; you never know where his morals or his allegiances lie, but his story makes absolute sense. He does not understand the desire for humans to find their creators, because he has been mistreated and used by his own since his creation. He is the grandson of the Engineers, and though it seems like Androids cannot create life, David does so in the grisliest of ways, breeding the ultimate in Alien terror. It has since come out that Scott intended for this instalment to launch the idea of AI usurping the Xenomorph as the primary antagonist, and there's a real, cogent step towards that goal.
It might sound strange, but ever since that screening, multiple replays of the film have softened my stance - the criticisms above still stand, but what I failed to appreciate at the time is that the three act 'Alien, Prometheus, Alien' structure dutifully untwists the two opposing themes; rather than present the two as interwoven narratives, the film allows for both to exist distinctly from the other. It's a course correction that also tries to shed the inherited baggage from Prometheus, the fans for which will no doubt be disappointed by the disregarding of the plot lines it started. But to be honest, they were plots that weren't well defined or interesting enough to begin with. Covenant evolves the themes of life and creations into more abstract metaphors such as 'creating a tune' and this is good; the origins of humanity was maybe a step too far for a franchise built on intergalactic parasites.
For the fans of Prometheus, though, Covenant still leaves a lot unsolved, but in theory we're still on the journey; Ridley Scott claimed that he could keep 'cranking out another six' prequel films. Covenant does a great job of setting up potential further instalments, with perhaps the best ending to an Alien film that's ever been written, a cliffhanger that blindsides with a shock twist that waits until the last possible moment to reveal itself. With the future of the franchise now in doubt thanks to the unwelcome intervention of the House of Mouse, it's unlikely any of the questions will ever get answers and that's definitely a frustration. One more film would have rounded out the prequels, and maybe someday we'll get it. But what Covenant made me realise is that whilst the Alien franchise can do okay with just the Xenomorph, it is just one of the parts that makes a great horror experience. Ridley himself has declared that the 'beast is cooked', and maybe he's right; it's been duplicated and stripped of its alien nature ad infinitum. But Covenant proves there's still life in the ageing franchise yet by exploring new ideas and creating a new generation of terrifying villain, and in doing so is proving that it's not afraid to piss off its fans in its pursuit of a reason to exist.
Sam's Score: 6
Alien: Covenant is available on home media and most video streaming services.
All images © 20th Century Studios
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