The Not Prometheus…Alien: Covenant Review
Let me pour one out to everyone else who spent the 15$+ to see Prometheus when it came out in theaters 5 years ago. Prometheus was promoted and hyped to be the prequel Alien movie that we needed, the movie that would answer all of the questions presented from Ridley Scott’s iconic sci-fi monster horror epic franchise. If you ended up seeing Prometheus, you unequivocally know the movie left you with far more questions than it did answers. In all honesty, Prometheus wasn’t all that bad. It was a mind bending sci-fi epic that was pretty entertaining, however I personally think it would have been better as a standalone movie, outside the realm of the Alien movies. At least that’s how I thought about the movie until finally seeing Alien: Covenant.
Alien: Covenant was the movie Prometheus wanted to be. Those questions brought up by the original Alien Franchise…answered for the most part. But the additional questions inadvertently created by Prometheus were pretty much all answered, and I’m not totally sure people were concerned about them being answered. I kinda feel like the majority of Alien fans just wanted to look past Prometheus and write it off as never happening. However, if you are currently one of those people, I highly suggest you take the time to go see Alien: Covenant, you can get the Dr. Bob Stamp of Approval, when I say I truly don’t think you will regret seeing this movie, even after being disappointed by Prometheus and here is why.
Alien: Covenant, near immediately becomes more exciting than Prometheus within the first 15 minutes. This movie refuses to pussy foot around with indecision. I’m just gunna be referring to Alien: Covenant from here on out as A:C because this is just getting fucking ridiculous. If you try to argue A:C should be reserved for Assassin’s Creed, I will actually fuck you up. Anyways…A:C makes the execute decision of being both a scientific mind bender and an actual, suspenseful horror movie, unlike Prometheus, which pretty much stuck to the science in a thought provoking plot. A:C said fuck that, threw their lab coats on then locked and loaded an M16 over their shoulders. They concocted a near perfect balance of horror/action and science. For every scene in which a Covenant crew members gets brutally slaughtered or turned into an embryo hosting chest cavity (there are plenty), there is a counter scene of “wtf is happening” science explanations and findings. As a man of both horror and science I whole heartedly support this recipe for entertainment. I want to be driven to intellectual thoughts about the hows, the whys, and the WTFs, just as much as I want to see a pre-Xenomorph tear a hot brunettes head from her shoulders.
The settings were varied enough from open space, ruins civilzations, to the cramped confines of the Covenant halls, to never feel stale. The scientific backgrounds and outliers were engaging. The quick evolution of the Xenomorph was done hastily, but it still seemed as though everything that needed to be said and done through the transition made an appearance. The scares were genuinely frightening, the suspense was evident with great scare execution timing, and the kills were downright brutal. As much as I enjoyed, there were still a few moments where I found myself asking, “how are you all scientists?”. Some of the shit they decide to do just didn’t make sense from a scientific stand point and this is me just being a nerd about these things. Like if you are going to explore an alien planet in efforts to colonize it for human habitation, every kid whose taken a science course outside of the 8th grade would tell you to limit your exposure to that unknown and possibly hostile environment to as little as possible. Instead these fucking morons decided to go on nature walks, smoke a few cigs, sniff some black ooze here and there. That’s the end of my ecology rant for now, regardless, Alien: Covenant was a really good movie. It captures the few good things Prometheus had going for it, maintained a very nostalgic feel to the original Alien series, and also threw in a few pretty cool easter eggs fans like myself would enjoy.
Alien: Covenant
4 Civilization Destroying Pathogens out of 5
