Year: 2017
Director: Ridley Scott
The whole notion of the ‘film franchise’ applies remorseless commercial logic to an artform. Just as wherever you are in the world a Big Mac is a Big Mac – except of course in France where it’s Le Big Mac. So it is now, six movies in, in the world of facehuggers and ‘it’s in the ship’. Ridley Scott’s efforts to reboot the whole thing and provide an origin story for the acid-dripping nightmare in Prometheus showed how tight the franchise expectations now are. Too much sense of wonder, confusing plot (Engineers, prehistoric star charts, WMDs, black goo, Guy Pearce hiding in the attic) and not enough of the woman-in-vest running down dark corridors with a big gun chased by the dark two-mouth drippy acid nightmare thing. Even Ridley can’t fight the feedback cards it would seem, and so Covenant attempts to do two things: to move the backstory started in Prometheus on while giving the fans what they want in terms of Alien action. Actually three things as everyone loved Fassbender’s bad robot, so let’s have more of that. Double Fassbender to go!
We set our scene on the colony ship Covenant, en route to somewhere more peachy than Earth but far away, when an accident forces a more modern Fassbot to wake the crew from cryosleep. As they repair the damage we get the 20s character download on each that the scriptwriters are relying on us to remember when an hour later they’re dancing with the big black guy with teeth or getting their faces hugged off. Then a mysterious signal persuades the crew to divert the ship to an enticing earth-like planet. There they discover Fassbot two: David 8 from Prometheus, who has been marooned Prospero-like (he’s big on poetry, art, philosophy etc. and there’s one zinger of a Romantic poetry line) on the isle.
Once the lander is down, and the comms are out, it’s not long before the killing starts. If Prometheus was perhaps a baggy concept album, this is a greatest hits compilation. All the hatch, match and dispatch techniques are present and correct and tremendously enjoyed by my teenage kids. The claret flows copiously, chests explode, dripping embryo-monsters emerge from corpses, and in the end it boils down to Big Black stalking an ever-diminishing crew through those dark corridors once more. Whole lines: ‘we’ll drive it towards us’ recall previous episodes.
If there’s a familiarity as strong as ‘Mr Bond I’ve been I’ve expecting you’ around the plot, we have to except the Fassbots. What is new here resides in their interaction. Fassbot 1 (Walter) a newer model, is a loyal soldier to his human creators and both fascinated and disturbed by the aggressively independent David 8 (who we last saw as a head in a holdall toted by Noomi Rapace) and his attempts to play God. The scenes between them crackle with ideas and tension and are much the best thing about Covenant. Much of their discussion focuses on the act of creating life, for David 8 has been at the black goo again, and I would urge everyone to just ride with the logic of all this or their head will hurt. We get from the white thing that emerged at the end of Prometheus to the full-on Alien, but Dawkins and Darwin remain uncredited.
It’s a highly entertaining two hours in the cinema, and Fassbender x 2 and Kathryn Waterson’s Daniels are excellent performances. But if Prometheus felt like an opening up of the Alien universe this feels like a back to basics move.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
Erm…it’s an Alien movie. So people who enjoy Alien movies.
moseleymoles says
What is it about Americans and state-based nicknames. The extrovert cowboy pilot character is of course called Tennessee. You never see butch HGV drivers or Metropolitan police detectives nicknamed Derbyshire or Dorset do you? Eh, eh?
Black Celebration says
If it was a British group, Tennessee would be called Tokyo Joe or Eskimo Sam. You know, along the lines of Don Estelle being called Lofty.
Kaisfatdad says
What about Jennings’s mate Darbishire?
Who is to say he did not grow up to be a cool, space age, cowboy pilot?
Middlesex is an ideal name for a gender neutral android.
Leicester Bangs says
Who could forget the terrifying Avon in Blake’s Seven?
Vulpes Vulpes says
Re: Scott’s indulgence of the focus groups. In Hollywood, no-one can hear you scream.
Great review. Look forward to undergoing the pleasure.
moseleymoles says
@vulpes-vulpes I’d get a shift on, screenings are thinning out rapidly.
fishface says
PETER BOWLES in Space 1999 episode End of Eternity gets my vote.
something about flouncing around alpha, wearing black flares and platforms pinched from Alvin Stardust scaring birds in silver bikinis I guess.
ludicrous and creepy at the same time.
Rob C says
Peter Bowels. I have personal knowledge that gavels this summation.
Kid Dynamite says
It’s the best Alien film in at least twenty five years, depending how I feel about Alien 3 on any given day, but it’s still deeply flawed. I am really not sold on the idea that David is SPOILER for SPOILERing the SPOILER, and the last half hour is so rushed it just kind of fizzles out. There was a lot of good stuff though. The two Fassbenders are excellent, and I liked the Neomorphs a lot.
moseleymoles says
@kid-dynamite yep better than 4, more focused than Prometheus (though I like Prometheus it does try and cover waaay too much) and yes there’s a BIG TWIST at the end the writers are so keen to get to they do rather underpower the final action sequences. And it errs too much on the Red shirt count in the Covenant crew. Looking back at the crew for Prometheus they were way better written – Rapace, Elba, Theron, Pearce all have much better scripting than anyone on the Covenant bar Waterson and Crudup. Tighter structure but I think overall less memorable. Double Fassbender papers over a lot.
Kid Dynamite says
Oh yes, the twist…not very surprising, was it? I think the entire cinema guessed it as soon as SPOILER appeared after the SPOILER.
Marwood says
Covenant – first half was a remake of Alien, second half a sequel to Prometheus.
It looked great, atmosphere building was brilliant – but all a bit underwhelming and contained nothing we hadn’t seen before.
The twist ending really wasn’t much of a twist.
Oh, and was the bit with the flute supposed to be funny?
timtunes says
Good review – I was really impressed by the film. There’s a lot to like, in particular the visuals in the first third when exploring the planet.
However, there is quite a lot of hate for it out there and it has performed dismally at the B.O., so the next part might be in danger
http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2017/05/waves-alien-nausea/