Review – Alien: Covenant

During most movies that I see, I take notes.  I do this to remember key scenes, performances, quotes, etc.  While watching Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, there was a moment where I stopped taking notes.  Not because the movie was bad or because I got everything that I needed, but because I was so invested in the movie.  I didn’t want to miss a single moment of what was going on.  My eyes were glued to the screen and I was in complete awe.  Ridley Scott has created a fantastic movie that is filled with outstanding visuals, good performances, and the perfect mixture of sci-fi and horror.

The crew of a colony ship known as The Covenant, bound for a remote planet, discover an uncharted paradise with a threat beyond their imagination, and must attempt a harrowing escape.

The original Alien (1979) played out like a haunted house horror film, where the xenomorph was aboard The Sulaco terrorizing all crew members.  Alien: Covenant plays out more like an epidemic horror film, like Cabin Fever (2005) or The Crazies (1973/2010), where our crew becomes infected by an unknown substance which causes the them serious problems and puts the entire crew and the mission in danger.  This is probably the most violent and bloody of all the Alien movies, as gallons and gallons of blood are poured onto the screen and characters die in gruesome fashion.  Think the chest-bursting scene from the original Alien times ten.

But the movie isn’t all blood and gore.  Like all of Scott’s films, the film is a visual stunner.  He captures space so beautifully and gives us some striking imagery.  He also builds endless amounts of tension throughout the entire movie.  From the time the crew lands on the unknown planet until the very last frame, you never know what is going to happen.  Characters get picked off left and right and twists and turns happen consistently all while xenomorphs and other versions of this alien roam on and off screen.  There isn’t a single moment to breath during this film.

The cast is stellar and they all give excellent performances.  Katherine Waterson finally gets her time to shine as an actress and shows flashes of Sigourney Weaver’s legendary Ripley.  The always great Billy Crudup is great once again as the ships reluctant captain.  Danny McBride flashes some rarely seen dramatic chops and impressed me as the ships pilot.  But the showstopper is Michael Fassbender.  He pulls double duty playing The Covenant’s robotic crew member Walter and David, the robotic crew member from Prometheus.  It is a true feat of acting mastery seeing Fassbender pull these performances off.  His robotic mannerisms are on point and he gives us two very different characters with different emotions and ideas.  The confrontations between the two are spellbinding.  This is one of the truly great performances of 2017 and one that should garner awards attention at the end of the year.

Alien: Covenant is the first great movie of the summer.  I loved Scott’s direction, the tension, the twists, and the performances, particularly from Michael Fassbender,  This improves on what Prometheus started and keeps the door open for more exploration of this story.  This is a science fiction at its best, horror at its best, and filmmaking at its best.

MY RATING – 3.5/4

Did you see Alien: Covenant?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or on Facebook by searching Kevflix.