Alien: Covenant May Be the Biggest Disappointment of the Summer
Here’s a sentence I’m just incredibly sad to type: Alien: Covenant is bad.
It’s not terrible. Director Ridley Scott didn’t make some kind of hugely annoying, incoherent movie or anything like that. There are a few pockets of enjoyment in what unfolds on screen and watching it is semi-pleasant. But after the credits roll, mulling over everything you just saw, the film continues to sour like milk left out in the sun. It was good for a little bit, but not for long, and that’s just not good enough for a franchise with this history.
Alien: Covenant is a sequel to Scott’s 2012 film, Prometheus, and it follows yet another ship traveling into deep space. This time, though, the ship is out there not for research but to colonize a new planet. Things then go awry, they land on a different planet, and very quickly it becomes obvious that bad things are about to happen.
And while the characters might realize they made a mistake relatively quickly, the film is not quick in getting to that point. Alien: Covenant is criminally backloaded, with almost an hour going by before the crew lands on the planet and another half-hour or so after that before the thrills start to really kick in. In that long slog of exposition, you spend a lot of time with the new characters but still manage not to learn much about them.
Daniels (Katharine Waterston) is the main character so, of course, she has the best backstory. The other standout is Tennessee, a pilot played by Danny McBride, who thrives on the actor’s charisma. As for the rest of the crew (which includes Billy Crudup, Demian Bichir, Jussie Smollett, and Callie Hernandez), you basically learn they are on this flight to do a job and that’s all. Some of their interactions raise mildly engaging questions, but nothing…
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