Direction: Ridley Scott; Cast:
Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterstone, Billy Crupud, Danny
Mcbride; Story: Jack Paglen, Michael Green; Screenplay:
John Logan, Dante Harper; Producer; Ridley Scott, Mark Huffam,
etal; Cinematography: Dariusz Wolski; Music Jed
Kurzel; Editing: Pietro Scalia;Genre: Horror-Sci-Fi; Distributor:
20th Century Fox; Location: outer space Running
Time : 123 minutes
Technical assessment:
3.5
Moral assessment:
3
CINEMA rating: V18
MTRCB rating: R16
Alien Covenant takes place after the events of Prometheus
although the opening sequence is the beginning of the predecessor film wherein
the synthetic David (Fassbender) questions mankind’s creator. Years after,
aboard the spacecraft Covenant, Walter (Fassbender) looks after the space crew
and the 2000 colonists and embryos onboard to Origae-6, a remote planet they
plan to inhabit. Covenant is hit by space debris destroying part of the
spaceship and killing the ship’s captain Branson and a few colonists. While repairing
the damage, they pick up a radio signal which turns out to be a woman singing
an old western song coming from a nearby unknown but habitable planet.
Oram (Crudup) the new captain, decides to check it out instead of continuing
their original journey. Daniels (Waterston) disagrees but she is overruled by
Oram. An expedition team descends to explore the planet. They discover the
Prometheus ship but two crew members are impregnated by alien spores. In a
series of mauling and killing, the survivors are rescued by David and led to
his hideout in the city full of Engineer corpses. After several discussions,
Walter realizes that David purposely unleashed the black liquid they were
carrying on board the Prometheus which killed the Engineers. David then
experimented on creating a new species, thereby transforming himself from a
created servant into the creator and master. Walter and David struggle as
Tennessee (McBride) arrives to extract the survivors. Daniels, and injured Lope
(Bichir) and Walter escape and return to the Covenant only to face off with
another alien who got implanted in Lope. Walter helps Tennessee and Daniels
defeat the alien and they resume their journey to Oregae-6 in hyper sleep.
Before Daniels falls asleep, she asks Walter to help her build the log cottage
by the river, when she sees Walter is not responding as expected, she realizes
that but it is David all along. However, it is too late as she succumbs to
sleep as David places two alien embryos out of his mouth and into the cold
storage together with the human embryos.
Ridley Scott delivers
the same mystic suspense and calculated gore to keep the audience interested
but sensitive to the images and concepts unfolding in the narrative. The story
is well structured and is not hard to follow even without having seen the
previous Alien films. It borders on
predictability yet keeps the audience glued and anticipating. The elaborate and
painstaking design presents a world that is cold yet alive, undiscovered and
dangerous. Fassbender gives a believable performance as the charmingly faithful
Walter and the manipulative David searching for purpose. It is unfair but
inevitable to compare Waterston’s with Sigourney Weaver's Ripley—in all aspects
she falls short. Overall, this Alien
franchise entertains enough as it explores another philosophical question about
existence and purpose. If it gives the answer… that is the question.
The pinnacle of one's
existence is to be like God—to have the ability to create. And fortunately,
mankind has been bestowed with this gift. Man creates through arts, through invention,
through procreation. And unlike other living creatures, man's ability to create
is enveloped in the desire to be human—that is to love and be loved, to serve
and be one. When man loses his humanity, his creations become destructive for they
are done for self-gratification. Then he loses his purpose—he exists to conquer
and devour. Then he becomes a monster. Alien
Covenant illustrates this through David and Walter. Both created synthetics
but one became more human because he retained his purpose to love, serve and be
one with his community, while the other who despite discovering the ability to
create transformed himself into the monster. While the movie delivers profound points for
discernment, the graphic action and gore are not suitable for young audiences.
