OK, so this will be a slightly quicker review than usual as this is a review on a brand new film I've just seen in the cinema, Alien: Convenant. So there will be no masses of quoted dialogue and notable scenes to avoid spoilers (and also for quickness!).
So, is the latest film in the Alien franchise any good??? Well, let's take a look....
And I will just keep the plot to a couple of paragraphs so any SPOILERS will be kept to a minimum (promise!).
STORY
So, the film is set in the year 2104 and it follows the crew of colonization ship named "Covenant" that is embarking on a mission to reach a remote planet named Origae-6 as the ship contains thousands of human embryos in frozen storage. The ship's crew during the journey are in hypersleep and the ship is manned by the android, Walter (Michael Fassbender) who is modelled on the same earlier android we saw in Prometheus, David. Suddenly however the ship is damaged by a neutrino burst that forces the crew to awaken from hypersleep and the captain of the crew (James Franco) is killed as his hypersleep chamber catches fire.
Once the remainder of the crew have recovered hypersleep, they pick up a radio transmission from a nearby unknown planet and the new captain, Orum (Billy Crudup) decides they should investigate it. And from here an expedition team that includes Walter, Orum and Daniels (Katherine Waterston) journey to the surface of the planet and trace the transmission to a crashed Engineer ship (the one from Prometheus). However two of the crew during their investigation become infected with alien spores and well....its not long before things turn very ugly indeed for them and soon the rest of the crew. However the surviving expedition members before they are attacked further by a xenomoprh, the creature is suddenly scared away by a sonic boom and the crew soon come face to face with David, who gives them sanctuary from the hostile environment. But when the crew are subject to David's hospitality, it soon becomes apparent that things aren't quite what they seem....
THOUGHTS
Well, it has to be said that as a follow up to Prometheus, Alien Convenant does fall a bit short of the mark on improving on it as a film. The film again takes the themes of the previous one and runs with them a little bit but at the same time it fails to take the story up from when Prometheus left off with (SPOILER FOR END OF PROMETHEUS COMING UP!!!!!!) Elizabeth (Noomi Rapace) and David travelling away from the alien planet to find out where the Engineers came from. And this in itself leaves you a bit disappointed as Noomi herself doesn't really feature in the film, which is another let down. Regardless of this though, Alien: Covenant is far from a terrible film and visually it remains a feast for the eyes as Ridley Scott contines his penchant for presenting stunning visuals.
PERFORMANCES
Performance wise the film is overall quite good with Michael Fassbender being the star of the show in his dual role as the obedient and loyal android, Walter and also the very morally shaky David (in fact make that a full blown shake!). And Michael seems to be relishing playing the role of David more so given that Walter is rather pedestrian goody goody character.
Katherine Waterston is pretty good in her role as Daniels and she is basically the Ellen Ripley of the movie, given that she is the tough yet also vulnerable. Although her character is somewhat underwritten she still stands out better than some of the performers in the film.
Danny McBride is also good as the chief pilot of the Covenant, Tennessee Faris, although he is usually seen in comedy films such as Tropic Thunder, Hot Rod and Pineapple express, but here he actually manages to handle more dramatic scenes pretty well.
Billy Crudup also puts in a good performance as Orum, who makes a rather rash decision in deciding to investigate the alien planet, which of course doesn't really end up that well for anyone but Crudup does well with what he is given here.
As for the rest of the crew I won't really mention them so much but I will mention that Guy Pearce makes a brief return in his roler from Prometheus as Peter Weyland, the CEO of Weyland Corporation. Last of all of course is Noomi Rapace, who to be honest hardly features at all in the film in fact I think it was a blink and you'll miss it role for her, which is a great shame.
DIRECTOR AND MUSIC
As for the direction, well it is of course Ridley Scott, who does a rather perfunctory job in some ways here but a great one in others, and by that I mean his direction of the story is somewhat underwhelming but his visuals remain stunning. This might come down to the material that Scott has to work with here in Covenant. But to give Scott credit, he mainly keeps the film's pacing fairly tight despite one or two lulls and if you like shock gore then there are some scenes here that will keep horror fans pleased.
Music wise, the score was written by Jed Kurzel, or so it would appear because film's music seems to largely comprised of the score from the original Alien film, which was by the late great, Jerry Goldsmith. In fact Goldsmith's score made so much of an impact on the film's music here, I can't really remember Kurzel's own original score pieces, so I'd imagine the score is not very memorable but would fit the tone well enough.
FLAWS (Warning: the odd spoiler might be here!)
As for flaws....yes Alien: Covenant isn't perfect by any stretch.
So, without getting into spoilers (and I will try and avoid mentioning spoilers as much as I can!) I think one of the main problems is that the characters in the film, apart from David, are pretty forgettable. And even though Daniels comes close to the being the most interesting character of the crew of the Covenant, even though her character is rather underwritten.
I also felt that the crew were pretty dumb in their decision to go to the alien planet in the first place, especially Orum, who makes the decision without any real consideration of their own safety. Also when the expedition team go down to the planet they don't wear any space helmets either and let themselves be exposed to the planet's atmosphere! So, yep these guys ditch common sense and take the risks, especially when two of the crew members are infected by the alien spores early on in the film.
The film tends to also bog itself down in religious symbolism with the aliens as David seems to spout alot of crap about religion in relation to the aliens and how he sees them. And the mystery of the aliens was what made them more compelling in the earlier films of the series but here Ridley is trying to dispel those myths and doing in a rather disappointing way.
I also felt for me that the gore of the film made me feel rather uncomfortable and the alien "birth" scenes left me looking away from the screen (yeah I'm a wuss when it comes to gory horror!). And from this point of view I felt Prometheus was a better film as its gore was more restrained and it wasn't all about chestbursting, head splatting etc. Prometheus had a bit more refinement about its depiction of violence, however that's probably because there were no actual xenomorphs in the film.
And further to this point I felt the CGI of the aliens themselves was a bit disappointing also as the aliens for the most part look pretty naff although the big xenomorph does look OK (that is seen later in the film and that's all I'm going to say on that!). So the rather poor CGI also left me a bit flat and it actually made you appreciate just how good the special effects in the first two Alien films were in comparison (well that daft little alien puppet that splats out John Hurt in the original film aside!).
Anyway that's it for the flaws (there are more but it would need to reveal more SPOILERS!!).
SUM UP
So to sum up, Alien: Covenant is a decent follow up to Prometheus but it remains far from perfect and for me its unrestrained alien gore left me personally a bit uncomfortable aswell as its lack of mystery regarding the aliens themselves. The film is also a bit heavy on its religious symbolism and apart from David, its other characters are pretty forgettable.
Despite this though, Alien: Convenant is still not a bad film, its just a shame that it couldn't have been better than it was, as so often can be the case with Ridley Scott's work in recent years. Still if you like the Alien franchise, its worth a look and its still a better film than Alien: Ressurection but for me personally I still prefer Prometheus over this one as it a better sense of mystery to it.
Anyway so that's it for now and I'll return next month with more reviews.
So, till then its bye for now!
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