Periodically, I will take a look at movies that, at first glance, are disappointing or flat out awful. For this reason, I have created A Second Look. This is going to be the kind of post that will take a “postmortem” look at a film. These will not be “reviews” per se, but rather an observation on the film being looked at. I will look at the overall reaction to the film and where a possible franchise may continue. There are certain movies out there that may deserve another shot and thus will earn A Second Look. For this inaugural post of A Second Look, I will take another shot at one of this year’s most divisive movies: Alien Covenant.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been a huge fan of the Alien franchise. Good or bad, I love these movies to death. Ridley Scott’s original Alien film was a massive hit in 1979. People lined up around the block waiting to get in. When they got in, they were in for a very claustrophobic and bloody surprise. What made Alien so damned good, was the top-notch directing by then-unknown Ridley Scott, with outstanding performances by Tom Skerritt, Yaphet Koto, Ian Holm and the woman that would become the face of the franchise: Sigourney Weaver. The film’s direction was tight, with tension and atmosphere that was almost palpable. The creature itself was unlike anything people had seen before. H.R. Giger’s infamous Xenomorph would become one of the most iconic movie monsters in cinema history. Alien took the idea of a science fiction movie and threw in Texas Chainsaw Massacre for good measure. The result is the greatest science-fiction/horror hybrid movie ever made. No other movie claiming to be sci-fi/horror has come close. James Cameron followed up Alien with his sequel, Aliens. While it was a different kind of film, Aliens also took the world by storm as one of the greatest sequels ever made. Alien 3 was doomed from the moment it began production and while the final product isn’t nearly as awful as everybody said it was, it was nowhere near as compelling as the previous films. The less said about Alien Resurrection, the better. As far as I’m concerned, Resurrection isn’t canon at all.
That was pretty much it for the Alien franchise. The Alien Vs. Predator movies don’t even count, so I won’t even go there. Around 2010, it was announced by Fox that a prequel to Alien would begin pre-production. That was an interesting tidbit, but what got most people’s attention was that Ridley Scott would be returning to the director’s chair for the film. That got people hyped. Unfortunately, as what happens in film-making, the initial script and screen-play were radically changed. 20th Century Fox felt it wouldn’t be the best idea to do a direct prequel. So, instead they opted for a reboot/prequel/something else instead. Prometheus was released in 2012 to very mixed reactions, with people either loving it or hating it. I was one of those folks who really dug the film. It had fantastic visuals, great visual effects and Michael Fassbender. It had some very interesting ideas about the nature of humanity and where we came from. Granted, some of those ideas didn’t pan out as intended, we still ended up with a pretty decent sci-fi adventure that still had connections to the Alien universe.
I believe it was in 2015 that a sequel to Prometheus was announced. It was going to follow the survivors of Prometheus, Elizabeth Shaw(Noomi Rapace)and David(Michael Fassbender) as they headed towards the Engineers’ home planet. That was something I was excited to see. Sadly, the backlash to the announcement as well as the previous film forced the director and Fox to retool the film into an actual Alien film. The film would be called Alien Covenant and would not see the return of Elizabeth Shaw, at least not in the way people wanted. The film, also directed by Ridley Scott, was released in May of this year. If you thought Prometheus was divisive, Covenant split audiences into three groups, essentially. You had people who loved it, the people who hated it, and people like me who were ultimately disappointed, but saw some good things in the film.
So, why the schism? For one, people like me, who absolutely LOVED Prometheus were pissed to see that particular story-line end the way it did: Swept under the rug. I was ultimately crushed by that decision. The way the film-makers handled Shaw’s fate was so backhanded that people didn’t care about the rest of the film. To be honest, I kind of tuned out for most of the film, because I was angry about that. You never get a second chance for a first impression. That was not the only issue that people had with Alien Covenant. It tried to be both a sequel to Prometheus and a prequel to Alien at the same time, but failed at both. At least, that was my first impression of the film. One of the other issues was that the writing was generally not very good. The characters were nothing more than fodder for the creatures in the film. Outside of Danny McBride’s Tennessee and Michael Fassbender’s David/Walter, there were no characters worth connecting to, because you knew that they were going to die. Part of what made the original film work was that you got to know the crew and care about them, so when they died, the impact had more of an emotional punch. Add on top of that, the characters were constantly making really stupid decisions, turning Alien Covenant into a second-rate horror movie.
So, does Alien Covenant get better with repeat viewings? As a matter of fact, it does, at least for me. As of this writing, on August 15, 2017, the film is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. Once I got over the way they handled the whole Elizabeth Shaw angle, the film actually opened up quite a bit in terms of scale and what David was doing on the planet. Alien Covenant is an origin story for the Xenomorph. I know that people would prefer the creature to remain a mystery, and to a certain extent, I agree. That being said, what I found from watching the film a second time was a sense of absolute isolation from anything else in the universe. You know what’s worse than claustrophobia? Isolation. I loved the fact that the landing crew got isolated from the main ship, because of ion storm. No communication and no safe way of returning. That meant they were stuck on a planet that appeared to have nothing but plant-life. From a visual standpoint, the film is absolutely phenomenal. From the mountains to the Engineer City, Alien Covenant is a visual treat. It’s even better on Blu-Ray with the textures being so sharp. From a design standpoint, it’s also fantastic. The ship designs are fantastic as well as the creature designs. H.R. Giger’s work is clearly on display here and what else is here is also influenced by Mr. Giger’s work.
A lot of people have also taken issue with the fact that the Xenomorph-proper is CGI. Here’s the thing, they used a guy in a suit as a reference, but used CGI to enhance the creature. Let’s face it, the way they wanted the creature to move wasn’t exactly something you could really get a stuntman to do these days. They were successful in 1979 and 1986, but that’s because they HAD to do it that way and it still holds up. The Neo-Morphs are suitably creepy and their births are genuinely disturbing. The gore-factor is definitely high.
There are still major issues with Alien Covenant that I feel bring it down. For one: The ending. I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the film, but you see it coming a mile away and it’s not particularly satisfying. It’s also blatant sequel-baiting for a movie that may not happen. Most of the characters are generally irritating and the female hero of the film isn’t really worth mentioning. Katherine Waterston does what she can with what she’s got, but what she’s got is about as thin as a wet piece of paper.
There’s also one outstanding issue that could affect the entire franchise moving forward: Box-office results. There’s no sugar-coating this: Alien Covenant was a failure. It wasn’t an outright flop, but it severely under-performed in a summer that was rife with some major heavy-hitters like Wonder Woman. Over the past month and half, it has come to light that 20th Century Fox was very disappointed in Alien‘s performance. As a result, they are “re-assessing the future of the franchise.” So, what does that mean? It could mean a lot of things. Prometheus generated renewed interest in the franchise and I don’t think that’s going to go away. There’s a lot of potential with this franchise to go in so many different directions. I think that Ridley Scott is going to be given one more film in the franchise to directly connect to the original film. After that, the focus of the franchise could be anywhere at anytime. If Mr. Scott can get the next one right, I think he needs to step away from the franchise permanently and in every aspect: No producing, no writing, nothing. That’s a sentiment that a lot of critics have echoed since Alien Covenant was released. The franchise needs new blood. Besides, a lot of people were really hoping that Neil Blomkamp’s film was going to happen. Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn have expressed GREAT interest in returning to their characters to give them a proper send-off. That would mean ignoring the events of Alien 3 and Resurrection.
So, is Alien Covenant worth a second look? I believe it is, in spite of the numerous problems the film has. It’s a lot of fun and has some terrific performances, specifically Michael Fassbender and Danny McBride. It also has a decent amount of blood and guts for the gore-hounds. My initial review and score of 7.5/10 still stands. I don’t think it’s the disaster that a lot of people thought it was, but it was nowhere near the film that it needed to be. In order for the franchise to reach new heights, we have to have new blood, so to speak. Having seen the film for a second time, maybe more, has me appreciating it on different levels.