Alien Covenant - Why Does This Movie Exist?

remember Prometheus everyone remember how I tore and you are soul and called it the movie that finally killed the Alien franchise remember when I called it a dumb meandering self-indulgent totally unnecessary vanity project from a pasta sprang director which abandoned everything that made the original movie so compelling and interesting and replaced it with a bunch of half-baked philosophy questions and a muddled contradictory and unsatisfying backstory that nobody even asked for remember how it seems almost inconceivable that anyone would want to make another movie in that universe and even if they did how it couldn't possibly be dumber less coherent and more self-indulgent than Prometheus well prepared to have your expectations subvert harder than a TNG fan because here comes alien covenant to suck up a hundred and twenty two minutes of your life and give you nothing in return except a banging headache and a lingering sense that something very bad just happens it's a bit like a night out in Glenn Rufus only there's less junkies trying to stab you in the face with broken buck fast bottles or dead strippers caught underneath your car axle anyway it's time to talk about covenant so let's dive right in and break this turd down the movie begins with a flashback to Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland - the unconvincing old man makeup when he first creates the [ __ ] Android from Prometheus they play piano talk about the finite nature of human life and Weyland asks him to choose a name for himself and because the statue of Michelangelo's David just happens to be sitting there well I think you can guess what he goes for no streets away this scene contains a number of red flags that you're about to witness a [ __ ] train wreck of a movie for example pretentious classical music that tries to establish a pseudo intellectual tone star quite futuristic environments interspersed with pieces of antique art symbolizing the declining influence of traditional culture and individuality in the face of cold sterile technology references to David the Giant Killer foreshadowing David's own role in seeking down the physically larger more power for an technologically superior alien bodybuilders conversations between a brilliant but ultimately mortal man and his immortal creation about the finite nature of human existence questions about where humanity comes from and what the true meaning of life may be so what can we discern from this opening scene well basically it means this movie's going to be repeating the same [ __ ] mistakes that made Prometheus such a tedious pretentious overblown short to get through anyway I guess Guy Pearce costs a lot of money these days so it's time to flush forward to the present day it's 11 years since the events of Prometheus and the transport ship covenant is on its way to colonize a new planets just like prometheus the ship is watched over by an Android while the crew are in hypersleep and again he's played by Michael Fassbender [ __ ] sake stick to the formula II Ridley so thus androids called Walter and he's having a great old time until a solar flare comes out of nowhere like a good RKO and damages the ship which forces him to wake up the rest of the crew so they can make repairs but oh no the captain burns to death inside his cryo tube how unlucky that the only person to die happens to be the most competent and level-headed officer on boards I'm sure that won't have disastrous repercussions later it does beg the question though why use an experienced actor like James Franco just to give him like three seconds of uncredited screen time how's the pain anyway unlike previous movies this crew is made up of married couples because I guess this is kind of a one-way mission so it makes sense for them to go together or you could just find a bunch of career-minded Singleton's and let them partner up once they get to their destination because honestly I can't think of anything more disastrous than forcing married couples to live and work together in highly stressful and possibly life-threatening situations that demands close cooperation and a unified chain of commands you know I once got into a blazing row with my girlfriend over who shot it was in a game of pool we broke up shortly afterwards not that it matters anyway the actors and the strip sooo shitty that concepts like having to obey orders from your romantic partner or the possibility of personal disputes clothing professional judgment is basically left unexplored what I'm saying here is that until the movie straight-up tells us you'd never guessed these people were married based on how they deal with each other this is also where we get introduced to the theoretical protagonist of the movie the Ripley wannabe I honestly can't even remember what this character's name is because she's so [ __ ] boring and generic she's got no personality or charisma and she's not helped by the absolute plank of wood they phoned to play her Sigourney Weaver at least looked like kind of a badass she looked like she knew what she was doing and when she was motivated to take action you believed she could see it through why don't we have actresses like that anymore they all we get her a bunch of soft board dead-eyed simpletons that look like they rolled off a [ __ ] assembly line so once things settle down from the solar flare the crew receive a transmission from a nearby planet and wouldn't you know it this place looks like an even better prospect to colonize than the one they're actually heading to I'd like to point out that there was probably a reason why their original target planet was chosen perhaps because it wasn't filled with deadly pathogens and murderous alien life-forms in a way the Ripley wannabe thinks they should stick to the plan but dumb ass replacement captain decides to check out the new planet and find the source of the signal so they land on the planet and go for a walk with absolutely no protective gear or biological precautions and then they find a derelict alien donut ship the crash-landed then one of the team gets infected by an alien Spore this floating around which naturally prompted me to think what the [ __ ] so you're telling me there are spores floating around everywhere that could infect that sima any moments so like why isn't everyone infected within minutes of arriving in this place I mean they all have to breathe don't they they all have ears and noses and eyes why does it only happen to a couple of people are they just really unlucky were they not wearing their plots armor the face huggers from the early movies served a very logical purpose they formed the basic life cycle for the aliens and pretty quickly you got to understand the nature of the threat they posed they weren't out to kill you they were out to impregnate you if you were quick and resourceful you could kill or isolate them before they could strike but if they got hold of you you were [ __ ] either way you could at least see them come in and try to avoid them that's why the medbay sequence in aliens was so exciting and thrilling Ripley and nutria trapped in a confined space with these [ __ ] things and it was a race against time to save them before they got taken down no apparently there's just invisible [ __ ] floating around everywhere that could strike anyone at any moments and if that's the case there's no tension now because there's nothing for the characters to run away from or try to fight off it's just random death waiting to strike anyway disposable extra number one gets sick so they take him back to the Lander but then he starts having a sweet rave party and an alien burst out of his back oh wait no this isn't an alien this is some kind of proto alien called a neo morph because this movie likes to tease the possibility of actual xenomorphs like it's some kind of crazy unexpected surprise or something [ __ ] off film also these people are genuinely some of the clumsiest most incompetent [ __ ] I've ever seen in my life and I'm from Scotland we're still learning joined up hand right in here they're falling over they're bumping into things they're slipping in pools of blood they're getting the feet jammed in automatic doors they're negligently discharging weapons in a confined space then disposable extra number two shows up with a shotgun but it turns out that shooting highly combustible fuel cells isn't a good idea why are these things even stored out in the open like this why aren't they shielded in some way why isn't disposable extra number two aware of the danger they pose meanwhile the Ripley wannabe and the other idiots are also on their way back to the lander when disposable extra number three gets sick because of the random deaths poor things and then another alien bursts out of his mouth wait so is that like a different alien from the other one why did one come out of the guy's back and the other one came out of this guy's mouth because it seems like it'd be a lot easier to come out through an existing orifice then try to break your way out through a human spinal column you see how it becomes kind of hard to buy into a movie that basically has no logical consistency because it makes up the rules as it goes along you don't know what matters because everything could change at the drop of a hat so anyway they come under attack from a pack of not Xenomorphs and more disposable extras die Jesus that's like half a dozen in the past ten minutes alone and I guess we're supposed to care about this but we totally don't because these people aren't really characters they're just meat sacks waiting to get sore and open seeing them die is about as engrossing as watching a digital counter ticking down remember in the original alien how the movie took its time introducing us to the crew of the Nostromo building them up as unique and fleshed out individuals with their own quirks and personalities and motivations remember how existing tensions and disagreements within the group got amplified in a believable way as the pressure started to mounts and it actually felt significant and impactful when each one of them got killed that was a good movie I missed that film but anyway before all of the disposable extras get killed someone shows up to save them and all look as David from Prometheus didn't he have his [ __ ] head ripped clean off his body no I guess he got better walking off Dave the coach says it'll be fine no because there's a storm on the way and there's always a [ __ ] convenient storm in these movies David takes them back to a deserted temple where he's been living for the past 10 years but there's a bunch of dead bodies lying everywhere and when they question him he's like yeah me and this other girl arrived here in the donor spaceship and accidentally released the black goo which killed all life on the planet and then she died afterwards from unrelated reasons so there's nobody around to corroborate my story what can you do ray wow that was an unlucky chain of events I love how nobody questions this extremely sketchy explanation then again these are the same people who landed on an alien planet without even wearing face masks so go figure then it's time for more pseudo intellectual [ __ ] as water and David have a nice chat my name is Ozymandias King look on my works ye mighty and despair then the kiss and finger each other watch me I'll do the fingering but then another not xenomorph gets inside the temple and some replacement captain shoots it as David tries to communicate with it like it's a [ __ ] pet dog or something then David's like come take a look at this huge sinister alien egg don't worry it won't hurt you and some replacement captain is like ok so guess what happens [ __ ] off film how are any of these people possible they have as much independent thinking power and common sense as a Gender Studies graduate and all the instinct for self-preservation of a manically depressed lemming why are we meant to empathize with them again Sir Walter goes looking for the missing idiots and that's when he stumbles upon what's left of Elizabeth sure remember sure from Prometheus remember how she fought against the odds to be the last human left alive and even performed the caesarean on herself to remove an alien squid baby from her body before it tore her apart remember thinking how cheap and unsatisfying it would be if she was killed off screen between movies and all we got was a really fake looking mock-up of her in the sequel well there you go I guess the writers were big fans of alien 3 which basically undid the entire ending from the previous movie in order to give us something that was as bleak and depressing as humanly possible you're all gonna die the only question is when [ __ ] off alien 3 Oh Ridley why do you hate us so more important why do you hate your own previous movie why would you substitute one generically strong female character played by a somewhat interesting actress for another generically strong female character played by a totally bland uninteresting actress it's not a good switch my friends so anyway it's time for the big reveal from David's and if you didn't see this one coming from like 10 miles away you are probably a character in this movie it turns out that the destruction on this planet wasn't an accident David came to the alien body builders homeworld and intentionally released the black goo that killed them all then he murdered Shaw so he could experiment on her and make more of the not xenomorphs that he plans to use to wipe out humanity what the [ __ ] are you really telling me that this super advanced galaxy spline an alien race that's been around since before the dawn of life on Earth was wiped out by some random [ __ ] Android using their own black goo wouldn't there be safeguards against this exact possibility wouldn't there be some kind of early warning or planetary defense system to protect them wouldn't they be a little bit suspicious when one of their lost donut ships suddenly returns after being missing for like 10,000 years for that matter if they lost contact with the weapons facility from the first movie why did they make no attempt to send a rescue mission to determine what happened to it and what's David's motivation for doing any of this why spend years creating the not xenomorphs to wipe out humanity when the black goo is perfectly good at the job why crash the donut spaceship on this planet and be forced to wait potentially decades for someone to stumble upon you when you could travel directly to earth with it and release the black goo and kill everyone in a matter of minutes why does nothing in this film make any sense see the problem with trying to answer questions about the origin of life is that you need to provide good satisfying answers instead of just spawning more dumb questions like if the best you can come up with is that a race of alien body builders created us for unknown reasons then decided to destroy us for equally unknown reasons then who created them why did they decide to destroy us why did David destroy them but also wants to destroy us is he just a straight-up [ __ ] he wants to kill everything now whatever so the two androids get into a fight David disables Walter and then he goes after the Ripley wannabe but then Walter shows up again and they have another fight and it's as visually confusing as you may expect and this time David gets killed off screen nope nothing suspicious about that whatsoever just move on and don't question it then Danny McBride comes eastbound and down with a brand new Lander well that was convenient timing and they escaped back up to the Covenant but all no disposable extra number 10 was impregnated by a face hugger and another alien busts out and kills more disposable people in a sheriff scene but then the Ripley want to be in pills are on a load of truck and blast out into space where have I seen this before Jesus why are the only partially good elements of this film stolen from other films so the Ripley wannabe is about to go into hypersleep but then she realizes that Walter is actually David in disguise because apparently he was able to serve her his own hand and totally change his appearance in in the few seconds he was off-screen and get aboard the Covenant without triggering any kind of alarm or warning system then David puts her to sleep and bars up some alien eggs in the same way I barf up a dodgy kebab and the movie ends thank [ __ ] so that's the plot for alien covenants now if you're anything like me you'll have reached the end of this movie and promptly asked yourself what the [ __ ] did I just watch it's like the writers tried to cherry-pick successful elements from the first two alien movies I did some goofy Marvel style action scenes a heavy dose of pretentious philosophical musings stolen from movies like 2001 and Blade Runner and slapstick humor that looks like a came out of a [ __ ] Adam Sandler movie the problem is that while each of these elements is fine by itself they simply don't mesh together into a coherent package instead what you end up with is a confused Frankenstein's monster of a movie that feels everything it tries to do it feels to capture the brooding terror of alien because it doesn't understand how to make the xenomorph scary anymore the scares are either predictable body horror that we've seen a million times before or a mess of incoherent new concepts that probably sounded good in a brainstorming session but don't make any sense in reality also there's absolutely no way you can show an alien in broad daylight and not have it look ridiculous it fails to create characters that feel like individuals nevermind people you'd want to know more about their bland and generic and worst of all their shockingly stupid I mean I thought the geologist from Prometheus that manages to get lost despite having a holographic map GPS tracking and constant radio communication was bad enough but holy [ __ ] these guys are next-level man let's consider some of amazing decisions they make in the course of this film they decide to go off mission endangering the lives of thousands of colonists aboard the Covenant simply because the here at John Denver's song playing over the radio as [ __ ] child take me home country roads gonna be kidding I mean last not even a distress call that's just some [ __ ] listening to music we venture onto the surface of an unexplored alien planet with no respirators face masks or protective gear of any kind as it's all mystery had two of them end up being infected by airborne pathogens they separate into smaller groups that could easily be isolated and killed off rather than sticking together and covering each other as they pull out they failed to isolate infected patients despite the very obvious risk of contaminating the entire crew and they fail to properly screen anyone for potential infection when they do return to the Covenant they allow themselves to be misled by an Android spin in a very obviously [ __ ] story about what happened on this planet and his own involvement in it one of them stands directly over an alien egg for no other reason that because David asked him to do it the characters in the original alien worked well because not only did they have distinct and well-rounded personalities but they generally made smart decisions taking logical measures to counter the growing threat of the xenomorph but these [ __ ] idiots just seemed to lurch from crisis to crisis with no idea what they're doing or how to get out of it as a result well you don't really care if they make it or not because none of them deserve to the movie also fails to create a worthy successor to Ellen Ripley simply put in a sweaty actress in a tank top and given her a gun doesn't make for a strong compelling character I mean Noomi rape face wasn't exactly Sigourney Weaver either but she at least looked kind of interesting and she held your attention on-screen and by the end of the movie you kind of empathize with her situation even if her decision to go to the alien bodybuilder planet made no [ __ ] sense but then they decided to just kill her off between films in a move that felt cheap and undeserved like they were pressing the reset button on a plot thread that wasn't convenient anymore the decision to have two characters played by the same actor work to pay as well as these things usually i mean i like michael fassbender as much as the next guy but i'm not convinced there wanted to see two of him in the same movie i didn't really buy into the idea of david as an antagonist either i mean he was kind of an [ __ ] and prometheus but he was basically just following orders he was even willing to help sure once Weyland was dead there was nothing to indicate he wanted to wipe out the whole of humanity but now we have to play into the pseudo biblical want to be poetic [ __ ] about creations ultimately turning against their creators when their illusions about divinity gets shattered and I guess that point really cuts to the heart of my issues with this film if you want to make some grand sci-fi epic that tackles the big questions about the meaning of life then fine go ahead but don't take that concept and try to shoehorn it into the alien universe in a shameless attempt to cash in on fine enthusiasm just like prometheus covenant tries to take the Alien franchise even further down a path that nobody really wants to follow paving its way with ideas and set pieces begged borrowed and stolen from other better movies in the series and the end result is a dull tensionless joyless feckless brainless and ultimately pointless film that shouldn't have been made a movie whose few good bits aren't original and whose original bits aren't good anyway that's all for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 2,202,033

Rating: 4.834661 out of 5

Keywords: Ridley Scott, Michael Fassbender, David, Weyland, Alien, Ripley

Id: YO0TUESAL5Y

Length: 21min 11sec (1271 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020