It's a good chip off the old Alien.
Alien: Covenant
Grade: B
Director: Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien)
Screenplay: John Logan, Dante Harper
Cast: Michael Fassbender (Song to Song), Katherine Waterson (Inherent Vice)
Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hr 2 min
by John DeSando
“One wrong note eventually ruins the entire symphony.” Walter (Michael Fassbender)
Anything that happens on or off a space ship traveling for years to an alleged perfect planet is bound, in sci-fi terms to hold more than one wrong note. Such in the case of Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, a delectable slice of the Scott Alien franchise and the 2012 Prometheus.
It’s a ship of clichés but so entertaining you’ll rarely notice its own wrong notes.
The colony ship with 2000 sleeping souls has its crew awakened by a storm and eventually decides to explore a nearby attractive planet. Like going off alone anywhere in a horror film, this maneuver brings the exact excitement fans have been hoping for, especially the old Alien slimy monsters with the long heads not featured in Prometheus, to the dismay of fans. As Tennessee (Danny Boyle) observes, “We don’t leave Earth to be safe.”
The more cerebral tension of Covenant is the twin “synthetics,” David and Walter, both played by Michael Fassbender. Knowing where their sympathies lie is a key puzzle, enhanced by the affective traits each oddly has, and leading to an uncertain role as good or evil. Fassbender has a poker face just right for concealing allegiances. The twist ending is more enjoyable because of the ambiguities fostered by these two androids.
The success for me is all about the humanity reveal and the concomitant dangers droids face when they become more human. Like the Star Trek series, which relies heavily on finding the humanity in the most vicious villains, Alien: Covenant wallows in our imperfections, making us the most vulnerable in the film’s experience, especially when it comes to acting like gods, or ancient potentates whose ironic, crumbled monuments Shelley described in Ozymandias :
“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.” David (Fassbender)
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
