Sunday, May 14, 2017

Movie Review: Alien: Covenant


So "Alien: Covenant" (2017) is a direct sequel to "Prometheus" (2012) that leads to the classic cult film Alien (1979) but before your head explodes (pun intended) from the confusion (pun intended), you can relax knowing that Covenant does a good job of guiding the audience from the events of Prometheus (which happens ten years before Covenant) to a juicy new chapter in the "Alien" franchise. 

The film opens with Micheal Fassbender's David, a synthetic, or an android discussing questions of existence and the meaning of life with his creator; Peter Weyland . 

Annoyed by David's seemingly never ending question, Weyland orders him to bring him tea, in effect putting the android in his place. 





The next scene opens to the colony ship "Covenant" travelling in deep space. The entire 
ship seems to be maintained by David while the crew and its passengers are in deep sleep. Interestingly there is a second generation of passengers on board the ship, and this is a drawer of frozen embryos! - And look! One didn't make it (Awwwww....) -better clean  that up! (Biohazard and all). You will start wondering though since the ship's Operating System (also known as "Mother") refers to "David" as "Walter"- but more on that soon. 

During Walter's errands, a neutrino shockwave hits the ship causing extensive damage. 

Emergency Procedures are taken and the crew is taken out of their hypersleep and its not a pretty picture and some don't even get to wake up. (Suddenly, the movie "Passengers" looks like a vacation.) 

After immediate damage control the crew counts their losses and may not be too keen on their new captain. During repairs on the ship, the crew receive an all too human transmission coming from a near by planet. Scans show that the planet is very similar to Earth and is habitable. 

Captain Oram (Billy Crudup) is elated, especially since they still have years (decades?) to go in order to reach Origae-6, which is their colonization destination and  they are not too excited to get back into those pods to return to stasis. 

Crew member Daniels, (Katherine Waterson) does not share the same optimism as Oram does but complies when a landing party is sent to investigate the planet. 

Needless to say, the crew has a (very) close encounter with the explosive and vicious Xenomorph creatures. (Yup! The very ones from your childhood) only these ones have modern 3D graphics bringing them to life! 



With the number of the number of the landing party slowly dwindling away, it seems like they are all doomed to die at the hands of the Xenomorph. In the confusion a familiar face saves them- and I'll probably end it there to avoid any spoilers. - What I can say is that "Covenant" surely delivers as an "Alien" film with the shock, gore and jump scares that you would expect. Hey, you didn't walk into watching an Alien film without expecting to see some pretty graphic images. 

Honestly, I wasn't so sure if I was going to see "Covenant", since I am six months pregnant and those images could be pretty traumatic but decided to see it anyways. 

Needless to say, I practically saw the entire film with my hands in front of my eyes. 

It brings back memories of the original "Alien" film. Something I grew up with as a kid.
Gore was satisfying (to say the least) and the movie neatly ties into the franchise.

Don't worry if you haven't seen Prometheus or even the original Alien film for that matter. Covenant will guide you and its easy to pick up the pieces from there.

A few nitpicks here and there (really, alarm does not override music ?!). Also how come it seems like the crew is made up of married couples. Its like a futuristic reality show. I wasn't a fan of that, but I do get wanting to go to and colonize a planet with your loved one but still..don't they know that there's a huge chance of you know, not making it. 

Despite the few nitpicks it was still an enjoyable ride! (7/10). 

Hands down to Fassbender and Waterson's performance! 


Alien: Covenant is now showing! 





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