Good not great. It bridges the gap between Prometheus and Alien, which left a lot to be explained, so you get that satisfaction. It's more of a sci-fi violent action movie with some scary parts than a horror movie.
It feels like you're watching Prometheus 2 with more action and violence with elements taken from Aliens (not Alien, which is more horror than action). So I enjoyed Prometheus like 6 or 6.5 out of 10, and Covenant is like a 6.5 or 7 out of 10.
I kinda ruined it, reading a synopsis of the film, knowing I likely won't see it until U-Verse has it available to rent. My wife isn't big on creature features; they give her nightmares. From what I read about this movie, it's pretty gory. Won't bother me, but, again, I'll have to wait it out.
I'll get around to seeing it but it sounds like a letdown. Too many reviews ragging on it. It seems the people who liked it were satisfied with the added aliens and action but those looking for a deeper alien film didn't take to it and made it sound like nothing new was really covered (reviewers talking about it like a checklist of doing what was done in the other films prior). From what I've read, too many expectations and the film sounds like a really dumb movie plot-wise with forgettable characters, really dumb decisions by the expendable crew, and action for the sake of action to fill a hole in the lack of alien action in Prometheus. It sounds like a stinker with little replay value once you've seen it. That said...I'm dialing back any expectations so I can try to enjoy it but maybe only on a visceral level. A lot of people seem really pissed that this is the best Ridley could come up with after Prometheus. I also heard the studio might have had their influence on the plot...which is never good. Ridley may have listened to the fans and bowed to peer pressure to make it more alien infested but he did it in an unoriginal script that left a lot to be desired. That is the gist I got from summing up the poor reviews. But, I will be my own judge.
Is it more similar to aliens or prometheus? If it is similar to aliens I am going to watch in the theatre if it is similar to prometheus I won't even watch it at home..
It's both, you have some big questions about what happened after prometheus and it's answered. It would be stupid not to answer these questions because people didn't like prometheus. what happened to Shaw, David, the engineers, and why all of it happened had to be answered. if you want aliens, there are definitely plenty of them here.
The execution this time around is much better than Prometheus because Damon Lindelof is not the writer. Ridley Scott has taken the series back to the basics of horror thriller. You have all the trademarks of an Alien movie; facehuggers, chestbursters, claustrophobic chases in sterile spaceship corridors, all of which comes together in a brilliantly shot scene involving a quarantine breach in the medical bay. Scott is on top of his game here. Few directors can evoke such fear, thrill, dread, and horror in a sequence like Scott. However, the true standout of the film is Michael Fassbender who delivers a powerful and nuanced performance which is among his best ever. He steals almost every scene, especially one which involves seduction using a flute. 8/10.
So these are my thoughts for people who saw prometheus and covenant Spoiler It's quite obvious that Fasbender is the main character of the Alien franchise now. He started the whole mess in Prometheus injected Shaw's husband with the black goo. He kills all the engineers (on that planet at least) and then he must have killed shaw, but don't know under what context. he had that monument for her but then it showed he experimented on her too. This is ridley scott, so there's so much bladerunner in the alien franchise now with the synthetics.
He is an idiot. Holy cow though. A pretty good film. Good Fassbender. Walter. Spoiler I still liked Walter best. David just seems erratic to me. RIP Shaw. My favorite cut open like this....sigh
I saw this last night. I enjoyed it. It was solid. The visuals were insanely awesome. I'm definitely glad I saw it in an IMAX theater. The acting was all fine, but there were no real stand out characters in this one. Bill Paxton was absolutely a standout character and stole the show when he was in the series. The plot was great and interesting. It's easy to see where it fits in with Prometheus and continues the path towards the first Alien movie. I guess there will be one more prequel to get us to the point where Alien starts. The only weakness was the supposed twist at the end wasn't really a twist at all. I think most of the theater figured it out long before the "reveal" scene.
So here my thoughts on that: Spoiler You're right, David is now the main character of the franchise. Ridley Scott is going for a philosophical argument on creation here. The scene at the beginning of Covenant lays this premise out pretty well with the genesis of David in a heavenly white space. He is awoken by his creator Weyland, who tests his creation and even challenges him via the piano. Satisfied that his creation is perfect and himself a god now, Weyland simply orders David to serve him, albeit tea this time. In the flute scene, David relays that very disappointment to his android brother Walter when he says humans were not worthy of their creation. Going back to Prometheus, Holloway tells David that humans created him because they can, to which David replies imagine if your creator told you the same. Later, we see the engineer wake up and basically delivers the same message in a brutal fashion. That's when David realizes the engineers are not worthy of their creation. Now, this why David decides to release the mutagen on the Engineer planet. The Ozymandias allegory fits perfectly to David's belief that neither engineers nor humans deserve to be creators therefore Gods. Thus, David sets out to make the perfect creation, the Xenomorph through the destruction of his Gods. Hence we come full circle, David is in fact the Prometheus in this narrative who stole fire (creation) from the Gods.
Spoiler So does David kill himself after his creation of the perfect xenomorph insectoid because he has no ulterior goals then? What is his next goal after destroying 90 percent of humankind and engineer race? Does he even know of the Predators, the hunter race, or other races besides Humans and Engineers, Space Jockeys?
Fassbender carries everyone in the Alien Franchise. Outside of Fassbender, nearly everything in Prometheus was cringeworthy. Ridley has been disappointing for years. He needs to retire and send his stuff off like he did Blade Runner 2049 to Denis V.
