Alien: Covenant - *Beware* - Packed with Spoilers

[CzarJunkie]

I'm a huge fan of the Alien franchise, with the first two being my favourites. I was also a big fan of Prometheus, even though some were not. I'm still deciding where Covenant lies alongside the others. It's certainly not up there with the first two, but I think it's up there with Prometheus, maybe.

It doesn't have the best start, however. The script does leave something to be desired. It feels lazy, and they've taken the piss a little. Especially expecting the audience to suspend their disbelief when they decide to make an unscheduled stop on an unknown planet. It's amateur hour in the extreme when it comes to assessing any kind of risks before setting foot on the ground and the gopros strapped to their shoulders made me piss. This is supposed to be 2104 ffs. I suppose they had to try and keep it as low tech as possible as it's a prequel to the original movie, although, if that was the idea, Ridley Scott is totally inconsistent with it.

Where the movie does work though, is the return to gore and horror. In quite a few nods to the original movie there is plenty of Aliens bursting out of humans, a psychotic synthetic and we finally find out how HR Giger's Xenomorph was created. The horror element wasn't as suspenseful as the original, more gore than jumping out of your seat.

I'm still undecided on the ending, one of the plot twists you could see coming a mile away. Once you knew that was coming, you could work out what the ending was going to be long before the end. It was well done though and still enjoyable.

For a movie a touch over two hours long, it certainly didn't feel that long. I had high expectations going in, and even though it didn't quite live up to them, I still really enjoyed it. It's flawed, especially the beginning, but get over that and it's quite a ride.

8/10