Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: John Logan, Dante Harper, Jack Paglen, Michael Green
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride
Runtime: 122 mins.
2017
Can one consider Alien: Covenant in a vacuum? Half of the movie is a dogged continuation of the slapdash philosophical noodling that Ridley Scott brought to the franchise with Prometheus, and the other half is a herky-jerky course correction towards a more classic Alien styling. This is indicated first and foremost by the title, which hearkens desperately back to the original run of films. It is also indicated by Scott himself, this quote about the backlash to Prometheus coming to mind:
. . . we discovered from it that [the fans] were really frustrated. They want to see more of the original [monster] and I thought he was definitely cooked, with an orange in his mouth. So I thought: Wow, OK, I'm wrong. The fans, in a funny kind of way--they're not the final word--but they are the reflection of your doubts about something, and then you realize 'I was wrong' or 'I was right.' I think that's where it comes in. I think you're not sensible if you don't actually take [the fans' reaction] into account.It is strange to see Scott make such a boneheaded remark. Not only is it a shocking misunderstanding of his own work, but it's a misrepresentation of audiences' very valid complaints about Prometheus, of which lack of Xenomorph tended to be low on the list. I can only really grok this comment by assuming that Scott was being defensive and a bit petty about unfavorable responses to a passion project.
That pettiness worms its way into the DNA of Covenant, which trots out Xenomorphs with dutiful regularity. The now entirely CGI Xenomorphs (or Neomorphs, I think this iteration is called) are gratuitous. It's not that they don't fit the plot per se. It's that these Aliens swagger through the film like slasher villains. In fact, the Alien-heavy half of the movie behaves very much like a schlocky slasher, right down to the utterly disposable characters who make baffling choices and ultimately get dispatched whilst having sex in the shower.
The superior half, on the other hand, plays like a retread of Prometheus that is twice as focused.* Not coincidentally, it also contains twice the Fassbender. The new model is named Walter. He is the resident android on the good ship Covenant, which is on its merry way to colonize a distant habitable planet when it gets hit with a wave of space juice. In the ensuing chaos, Walter wakes the crew from cryosleep. There are a handful of cryo-casualties (including, bizarrely, James Franco) which the crew barely has time to mourn before discovering that they are coincidentally near an uncharted habitable planet from which a scratchy transmission of a John Denver song is being sent. They go there and encounter all manner of nasties, including David, the megalomaniacal android from Prometheus.
*Mind you, that still doesn't make it the most focused movie...
The film swings and misses on one key aspect of David: his defining character moment happens offscreen between movies. I have to believe they couldn't get Rapace to reprise her role--otherwise, it's just a dumb missed opportunity. But it's also treated as a late stage reveal, one of several reveals that don't work because the film's script is entirely predictable.
That aside, Fassbender once again succeeds in singlehandedly elevating the film. Every worthwhile aspect of Covenant can be tracked to the film's opening scene, in which we see David's first moments of consciousness. As his creator Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) immediately looks to instill in David a slave mentality, we can already sense the budding Übermensch straining at his shackles. Scott films the scene in a sterile negative space structured by sparse yet grandiose decoration. The scenic composition evokes a Platonic realm of forms, in which all the signifiers that will come to define David are present: his egomania (the Statue of David), his will to create (the grand piano), and his hatred of oppressors (the pouring of the tea).
It provides a stable base for a character whose motivations are otherwise no more clear than 'sow wanton discord.' The role would surely fall to pieces without Fassbender's incredible control. The gloriously homoerotic scene of him teaching himself how to 'finger' a flute is alone enough to justify the Prometheus cycle. David's chilly mastery of those around him is endlessly compelling, especially punctuated with key moments of lost composure.
It's too bad the rest of the cast is so anonymous. Waterston acquits herself well enough, but she's just doing a less memorable iteration of what Rapace did a few years back, which is itself a less memorable iteration of what Weaver did a couple decades ago. Indeed, even Prometheus managed to cobble together a far more memorable crew than Covenant. This is especially crippling because the film makes a big deal of the Covenant being a colonizing ship which is filled with couples. Yet the film fails to take advantage of the tragedy of a romantic partner dying; the characterization is so bad that we can barely tell who is shacked up with whom. I didn't even realize there was a gay couple in the film until one of them died and the other started mourning.
Of course, Covenant doesn't keep track of any of its themes particularly well. Early on, Oram (Billy Crudup) is given some clumsy exposition about being ostracized because of his archaic religious beliefs. The film goes on to forget this entirely. It's a shame. Everything tends to feel a bit more inconsequential than it should.
The Aliens themselves fall in this category. They do their job and are fun to watch, but their presence feels obligatory. Their strongest moments involve Fassbender in some form. But the film cheapens their role with a double clutch action climax that adds little to the film beyond the required "tough woman uses machinery and sheer willpower to best unstoppable enemy" beats of the Alien franchise.
Nonetheless I look forward to the likely final entry in what ought to be considered the David trilogy rather than the Alien prequels. Even Scott's failures are worth a look, and there's enough captivating material in Covenant that it feels more like a playful misfire than an outright failure.
2.5 / 5 BLOBS
PS: This excellent analysis of Scott and his career is worth a look, as it culminates in a fascinating explication of Covenant and David: http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/06/13/film-crit-hulk-smash-ridley-scott-cinemas-underrated-weirdo
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