I finally took the plunge, and watched the latest prequel to my favourite film. The film has some of the best cinematography of the series, and the music follows the theme of the original, so that’s good too. As for chronology, the film fits between Prometheus and Alien, and continues to pointlessly expand on the mythology that never existed, while providing next to no answers. Ultimately making the film nice to look at, and utterly unsatisfying.
The Plot
The basic premise of the colony ship diverting to the world of the engineers is okay, though starting to stretch connectivity of the films to breaking point. The androids were okay, though dragged out for far too long. I actually preferred the return to the Covenant for the last few minutes, though it was too short and over in a matter of minutes.
The Characters
The weakest part of the film. There are no standout characters in this film. They are interchangeable, and I still know almost nothing about them. Alien was rooted in the small number of crew, all of whom were rounded and realistic. Covenant, not so much. As in Prometheus, they act like morons at every single stage.
The Ship
I like the ship model, and the interiors. The CGI was done in a style to try and repliicate a physical model, and it looked really nice. The internal parts of the ship were great, though very underused. The computer systems are still way too advanced though compared to Alien.
The Alien(s)
Too much easy to see CGI makes them look more fake than anything seen in the four original films. Fast, jumpy, and deadly. More like alien monkeys.
Summary
Better made and put together than Prometheus. The characters are very weak, just like Prometheus. The basic story is reasonable, and the production quality pushes the film from a 2 out of five, to a three out of five.
Mediocre prequel, but better than Prometheus