I’ve finally seen it – well I saw it on Monday past. I my long suffering fiancee saw it with me.
I managed to convince her by using the cinema’s Monday money off ticket deal, but since it was a bank holiday the deal wasn’t on 😠. Anyway, we saw it. Thankfuly, she didn’t start asking me back story questions during the film – like she did during AVP 2 😬. To be fair, the the predator’s behaviour was a little hard to follow.
My initial interest in Alien Covenant was 2 fold.
- I was researching how characters act and react to creatures of unimaginable and horrific speed and durability
- Also, I’m a long time fan of the franchise and I needed to see how Promothesus connected with Alien.
But, I was very pleased, for obvious reasons, to see that exploration party ‘weaponed up’, then completely fell to pieces when attacked by a creature of unknown ability – then got their assess kicked.
That was a beautiful scene, much like the velociraptor in the tall grass scene in Jurassic Park 2 the Lost World. Short but satisfying.
The scenery again was beautiful. Reminded me a lot of Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion.
I for one loved the discovery that David created the Alien (or xenomorph) as a biological weapon (again for my own obvious reasons).
At the end I felt a little deflated, mainly Because, the ‘it’s David pretending to be Walter’ storyline was way to predictable and cliche.
But then, a couple of days later I realised that the story writers (Peter Paglen and Michael Green), plus the screenwriters (John Logan and Dante Harper) and obviously the director Ridley Scott did a damn excellent job.
The reason I say this is a bit like an architect who is give a plot of land to design and build house, when the plot of land is squeezed between 2 existing houses, each built in different eras and look very different.
The writing and directoring team had a prequel on one side dictating how the film needed to start, a sequel on the other which influenced how the film should end, and 38 years of mystery that needed solved in a 2hr slot. 🤔
Basically, there wasn’t a lot of wiggle room to satisfy all that, plus allow the actors to portray the characters in their own way, plus the suspense, plus allow time for the horror and panic to build.
For that reason, I thought it was great.
I enjoy watching Guy Pearce, and Michael Fassbendr are just awesome to watch in this type of movie.
Finally, keeping only 1 alien as the centre of horror was much appreciated. As much as I like the seeing scores of xenomorphs mass on to marines and humans (Aliens, AVP2 etc), it was great to see that 1 alien is just as much as the viewer needed to kick the tension and suspension at a maximum.
Plus, I thought Sigourney Weaver was the voice of mother, which she isn’t. I was annoyed to find that out. I guess all those avatar movies can keep a person busy 😉
Thanks the reading.
J.W.Stinson 