THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
We got a bold entry of the Alien franchise with the prequel Prometheus and since that one gave us more questions than answers, we luckily got the latter with Alien: Covenant, which finally showed how the xenomorphs were born.
PLOT
The 2017 film takes place in 2104 AD, 11 years after the Prometheus expedition and follows another crew boarding the titular colony ship heading towards Origae-6 for colonization, containing 2,000 colonists in stasis and over 1000 embryos in cold storage. Accompanied by the android Walter who resembles David, the main crew members include: Captain Jake Branson (James Franco), his wife third in command Daniels, first officer Christopher Oram, his wife biologist Karine, chief pilot Tennessee, his wife lander pilot Maggie Farris, navigator Ricks, his wife communications officer Upworth, head of security unit Dan Lope, his husband security member Tom Hallett and four more security unit members (Ankor [Alexander England], Ledward [Benjamin Rigby], Cole [Uli Latukefu] & Sarah Rosenthal [Tess Baubrich]). The trip takes a drastic turn when the ship flies through a solar storm, causes Branson to accidentally die from a pod malfunction that sets him ablaze. After repairing the ship and proceeding the funeral for the original captain, the crew gets a transmission from a nearby planet that appears more habitable. Despite Daniels' protests, Oram takes command and decides to check it out. As Tennessee stays on the ship to pilot with the company of Ricks & Upworth, the rest of the crew go to the planet via lander. Mayhem ensues when Hallet & Ledward get infected by fungus-like spores. Karine takes Ledward back to the lander as he rapidly deteriorates. When Farris chooses to quarantine them both, a pale white alien bursts from Ledward's back and kills Karine. Farris tries to kill it with a shotgun, but she accidentally triggers an explosion which destroys the lander and takes her life. As the crew sees the explosion, another alien bursts from Hallet's mouth and kills Ankor. The crew is able to kill one until they get assisted by David, the remaining survivor of the Prometheus mission. He takes them to a temple that once belonged to the engineers and explained when he & Elizabeth Shaw arrived here, they accidentally released a pathogen that wiped out all life before crashing which apparently caused Shaw's death. With the crew barely being able to radio the Covenant due to ion storms, they must stay the night until the storms stop. When another pale alien kills Rosenthal, Oram is able to kill it in return. But upon this, David confesses to creating the creatures as a result of releasing the pathogen and experimenting with it to create new lifeforms. He then shows him a nest filled with the original nest of face huggers. When getting too close, one latches on to him and lays an embryo inside, giving birth another alien that is all black and contains double jaws. Walter & Daniels then find Shaw's dissected corpse, in which David confesses to use her for his evolving designs and plan to use his organisms he deem perfect to eradicate humanity. David then tries to kill Daniels before Walter intervenes, giving her the chance to retreat. When Cole and Lope search for the remaining group, the black alien kills the former while another face hugger attacks the latter. Lope is able to remove it off his face, but gets his cheek severely burnt from its acid blood before reuniting with Daniels. The two and Walter, who was able to have bested David, get extracted by Tennessee who kills the alien in the process. Back on the ship however, the alien burst from Lope's chest and quickly kills Ricks & Upworth. Daniels & Tennessee are able to defeat the remaining creature by using heavy equipment to push it into space. The horror appears to end with the voyage to Oriage-6 continuing as planned. Just when Daniels & Tennessee go into stasis however, the former deduces Walter is in fact David who puts her to sleep before she could stop what he has in mind. The film ends with David placing two face hugger embryos and impersonating Walter in a transmission, reporting that all but Daniels & Tennessee died in the earlier storm.
THOUGHTS
Ridley Scott pushed boundaries when making a thought provoking experience out of Prometheus and because of this, he was able to make us still invested in the payoff of this origin story. Was it worth it? I I like to think so because this time, Scott brings the best of both worlds where you’re left second guessing on the concept of humanity while being scared shitless. Of course the visual effects and production design on these fictional planets bring out fantastic cinematography by the end of it, the strength goes to another terrifying batch of aliens that are ancestors to the infamous xenomorphs. Now it is mistaken the black praetomorph to be the same thing, but it’s actually not due to having longer limbs that are also thinner and have smaller spines in comparison. When you put aside the differences though, they get the job done in being the creepiest of monsters to behold. I also thought it was cool to get a pov shot confirming these creatures are able to see via sonar despite not having visible eyes. What can be scarier than this you would ask, is the white neomorphs who were much taller and had no lips, which made them intimidating by the time they opened their jaws. With these creatures having distinguishable features, there is no doubt they’ve made their own impact in being horrifying to witness. Personally, I prefer this story over Prometheus because it gives a better execution on explaining there are consequences when being too ambitious to manipulate life & evolution as we know it. This was the arc that was incredibly explored through the perspective of David. Michael Fassbender’s return as the infamous android surpasses his first outing because he is in a belief that humanity has been unworthy to live the way it should and wanted to make something perfect in his eyes. He feels this way because since the moment he was born, he knew that even from the eyes of his maker Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), he was never going to appreciated for his abilities, thus rebelling in shocking fashion. It was an open surprise for him to kill the engineers since they planned to kill us first, but it was a bigger shock for him to dissect Shaw for his own gain when she came off as the only human to show genuine affection to him. Off of that, there was no way he could be redeemed should he ever try. That is where we appreciate Walter more, who is also played by Fassbender. He may be aware it won’t benefit either party should he think past the objective, but he still chooses to think for himself without affecting anyone. He naturally wants to fit in by being part of Jacob’s funeral and being part of the toast when he didn’t have to. And he chose to save Daniels everytime he could not just for the fact he had to, but because it was the right thing period. With such a valuable ally, it was a shame he couldn’t stop David. And with David getting the last laugh, it puts the pieces together that he paves the way for the events of LV-426. Because of a formidable villain, the only thing we could do is frown over the human victims that flew into danger. It’s easy to compare Daniels to Ellen Ripley for being a final girl that knew it was a bad idea to go off course. Besides that however, Katherine Waterston shows her to be smart enough to put her resources to good use whenever she did. It was easy to hate Oram because he kept assuming everyone rejected him for his faithfulness. Billy Crudup was able to present him as one who was trying to act out of hopefulness, but his nervousness would only make him more careless than he thought he was. Had he taken Daniels’ advice, he would’ve avoided the whole demise of his crew. With someone so self centered, it’s a surprise he found an equal through Karine. That is because Carmen Ejogo portrays her as more of a polar opposite. She is able to hear how her husband feels, but still knows how everyone else does, knowing that picking sides doesn’t benefit her at all. She was genuine to tell Chris to find common ground with the others because they were gonna spend the rest of their lives together and had to get along for the greater good. For her kindness alone, it felt like a red herring that she was doomed. It had been a long time since Danny McBride had been in a drama, yet he still had the range to make Tennessee likable. When not being the calm one for the most part, you relate to his inner fear on losing loved ones to the point where he’d selfishly put the colonists at risk to save them. It’s fair to point out he shouldn’t have done that, but you can’t act like that you wouldn’t do the same in his shoes. With that being said, you also can’t blame Faris on how she chose to act in her last moments. Amy Seinietz made her self aware in wanted to isolate the danger and if she should be ridiculed for that, then that is lacking common sense. It may have not worked to her liking, but you can’t hate her for trying. I also dug Demian Bichir as Lope because he honestly was competent enough to defend himself as long as he did, thus lasting longer than his whole unit he led. Obviously if they face hugger wasn’t so damn fast, he also could’ve gotten to live another day. Ironically, I can’t say Tom matched his competence no matter how assertive Nathaniel Dean presented him. The irony doesn’t even stop there because Jussie Smollett & Callie Hernandez showed Ricks & Upworth as the only other ones who were able to avoid danger for the majority of their time due to remaining on the ship. And the one time they let their guard down for the sake of intimacy, they pay the price for it. Now having said my piece on why it works, there are still some aspects that don't make sense upon re-watching. From the top, how did Daniels the tension on the equipment was 15% down before checking the computer to confirm? That's too big of a leap to where you would guess she's an android like David/Walter. Personally, I gotta say again I can't be the only one who thinks Oram is overreacting in the first act before becoming lenient in discovering the transmission. There is no need of him to compare Jacob's burial as a sign of not being trusted when the company assigned him second in command. It doesn't matter if you're too faithful in what you do when there actually is a fair amount of trust as is. And why should anyone think it is a good idea to split up on a planet where they don't know what to expect? After decades of horror movies, these characters should know the numbers are better when together than separated. I don't blame Tom getting curious with the spores, but he should've backed up the second he saw the fungus spray out of it. He likely could've avoided his death if he tried. It even feels weird when the group takes so long to wait for David to explain himself before seeing the forgotten temple. If they want to know who to trust, they should've asked all their questions before even getting there. And I am with Ricks & Upworth on the fact they should've stayed in space rather than allow Tennessee to fly through a storm just to rescue the others. The guy has right to worry about his wife and the others, but the lives of 2,000 colonists are honestly way more essential in that standpoint. And lastly, it is crazy luck that Daniels avoided the acid blood when pushing the alien out because that could've landed on her and the ship. Ignore this, then you'll still appreciate this movie for what it's going for. In short, Alien: Covenant is the closest return-to-form an Alien fan would expect in this prequel arc. If you enjoyed Prometheus and want the main answer to the franchise's origin, see this now.
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