Subtitled: Screwed by the AI again!
The Story: A really nice, well prepared, colonization ship has a one in a million accident within range of the world where psychopathic synth David, who inexplicably survived the events of Prometheus, is patiently waiting to unleash xenomorphic horror on humanity.
Massacre ensues as several of the landing party are killed after an infection by spores leads to a xenomorph erupting from their bodies and going on killing sprees of their own. David temporarily rescues the survivors and feeds them a line of BS about how Elizabeth Shaw repaired him, piloted the ship to the Engineer’s world, and then accidentally released the bio-weapon upon them, dying in the crash.
The audience knows this is a lie because the real story is presented flashback style accompanying his monologue.
David then reveals his true intention to the hapless commander of the mission, Oram, who he infects with the face-hugger. Oram dies, a complete and utter failure, and the familiar alien xenomorph is released to help David initiate his plan.
Humanity’s last line of defense is Walter, the newer model synth assigned to the colonization mission. Unfortunately, Walter cannot manage to finish braining David when he has the chance. David assumes Walter’s identity, infiltrates Covenant, reduces the crew to just two, and reveals himself to Daniels after she is locked into her cryosleep pod.
Following the unsurprising revelation of the switcheroo, David regurgitates a couple of tiny specimen pods with tiny face-huggers in them.
The Review: Better and easier to follow than Prometheus, which is not saying much. Lacks the comedic punch of Charlize Theron getting rolled over Bugs Bunny style by a spaceship. Personally, I think this is a good thing.
Reminiscent of those dark 70’s movies with punch in the gut dystopian endings.
This was a polished film. I liked the variety of sets shown and their detail. The ships, of which we see four, the necropolis, and the planetside sites are all strong points of Alien: Covenant.
The large cast, quickly whittled down of course, portrayed mostly believable characters: shocked by the terrible death of their first captain, hopeful or suspicious of the sudden appearance of a perfect planet, imperfect in their humanity, and imperfect in their artificial intelligence alike.
Alien: Covenant should make an excellent springboard to connect these prequel events to the events of the original Alien movie. How does the ship on Acheron come to be there? How is David apparently defeated? I’m assuming he must be, for he seems to have failed in stopping the spread of the human race. What happened to the Engineers?
What Did Not Work For Me: A lot of the set up and plot. Who were these people? All soldiers? Some soldiers, some civilians? The captain had the authority to divert a really expensive mission to chase a fragment of a ghost?
And where is the paranoia? Planet inhabited only by plants? An older model AI known for creepiness? There were at least three times when someone should have shot David. Also, what’s up with Walter? He’s a more advanced model, physically, and mentally adapted to duty and the avoidance of deep, philosophical quandaries. He should have ripped David’s head off ten seconds after meeting him.
Modernization or not? The Covenant, a ship which predates the Nostromo, the Sulaco, and the Auriga, is sleek and lovely, with advanced instruments, computers, and interfaces. Should the producers have preserved technological timeline, or would that have just, um, alienated, viewers. Sort of a nitpick, I know.
The ending. I’ve seen it before. I’m not sure how to fix it, since David needs to survived to set up the final? battle for humanity’s future.
Last Word: Two hours of escapist fantasy fluff for lovers of Alien-verse.
Bureau of OverAnalysis 