Alien: Covenant (2017)

This is certainly an improvement on the offensive, boring, pretentious and mind-blowingly stupid piece of horrible dirty, slimy garbage that was Prometheus, although it does share some of the same problems.

The film's biggest up is that it isn't boring. I actually really enjoyed the pacing of the first two acts - they take their time and I respect that. The third act however feels incredibly rushed and everything seems to just happen before it's even started. I also really enjoyed some of the performances, with the clear standout being Danny McBride. I thought the cinematography was really great here as well, with the aesthetic being more murky and fitting to the alien franchise, rather than the ridiculously shiny Prometheus.

There are more bad things that good things however. There isn't any real tension and I wasn't scared at all. This is maybe because I didn't really care about any of the characters. I liked Danny McBride, Ripley #5 is alright I guess, and I liked Walter played by Michael Fassbender, and that's it basically. Fassbender also plays the evil David who is entertaining but so over the top at this point that it's actually hilarious. He is also basically a mary-sue villain now. My least favourite character was Billy Crudup's Captain Faithy Faith McFaithison who has faith and that's his character, who makes some of the most incredibly annoying and stupid decisions.

I quite liked the new Alien Neomorph, but the way the Alien's are treated in these new movies is really aggravating. By giving them any mythology at all you are ruining the mystery surrounding them, let alone such a rubbish one.

The CGI aliens are really hit and miss. Sometimes they look great; sometimes they look terrible. That baby protomorph doing the YMCA is so stupid and unintentionally funny. There a lot of moments like that in this movie.

Ridley Scott's direction is also very uneven. He's a great, veteran director and that does come through every now and again but he also resorts to some really cheap techniques, like doing a Protomorph POV shot. Come on man, you're better than this.

As Alien is one if my favourite films of all time, naturally I was dissapointed by this, but at least it was better than Prometheus.

4/10