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After a long wait, the fans of the “Alien” franchise can finally sigh with relief, since the new sequel “Alien: Covenant” came out this Thursday. Whether or not you are into the Sci-Fi Horror genre, this film is definitely something that is worth watching, at least once.

Produced by the 20th Century Fox and directed by Ridley Scott (“Alien”), the film became just one more piece of the puzzle that the audience has been waiting for ever since the prequel  “Prometheus,” also directed by Scott, came out in 2012.

The movie picks up 10 years after the events of “Prometheus” and reveals what happened to the two remaining survivors. Unlike in the previous film, Michael Fassbender (“X-Men: First Class”) this time played not only the antagonist David, but also Walter, an android, who is a crew member on a spaceship named Covenant that is headed towards Origae-6, which is a planet that they’re planning to colonize.

The movie begins with a flashback monologue scene between an android David and his creator Peter Weyland, performed by Guy Pearce (“Prometheus”) From the moment David names himself after looking at Michelangelo’s statue of David, it becomes clear that he is something more than just a synthetic android. Their dialogue raises philosophical questions about the creation of humanity as well as the limitations and weaknesses of human beings. The major point of the scene is David’s realization that even though a human created him he doesn’t want to serve humanity since he’s superior to them in all aspects.

After the flashback, we see Fassbender, but as Walter on the spaceship. The film starts with a dramatic scene of the captain’s and several other passengers’ deaths due to an accident, which gives the audience a hint that there’s even more death and destruction to come. While fixing the ship, the Covenant crew gets a suspicious message from an unknown planet, which they interpret as a call for help when they hear a human singing. Furthermore, they discover that the planet is even more habitable than Origae-6, prompting the new captain Christopher Oram, played by Billy Crudup (“Watchmen”), to decide to explore and evaluate it.

Oram makes the classic mistake of every character in every horror movie, by making the dumb decision to check the suspicious and potentially dangerous planet that they don’t know anything about. When they arrive, the crew members face the alien species for the first time, which is followed by a series of deaths.

After another attack, David, who looks identical to Walter appears and saves them. Though he seems like helpful character at first, it becomes clear that his intentions aren’t exactly well meaning. In his 10 years of isolation, he’s become obsessed with creating the perfect alien and wiping out humanity.

When the team realizes that they fell into David’s trap, it’s already too late and they continuously lose their members. Oram’s death becomes David’s final step to create his perfect beings, which closely resemble the Xenomorphs in the original Alien movies. Though they are creatures that viciously kill humans, I personally found them to be weirdly adorable monsters, especially in their chest-bursting infant stage.

One more notable moment is when David shows his love for Walter, even while attempting to kill his fellow cyborg. It seems that David saw himself in him since they were both synthetic androids that were far superior to their creators and so he attempted to recruit Walter to his side.  Furthermore, David is said to be the android that is the most human out of all the other ones, which would explain his non-android emotions and feelings.

The movie had great pacing and suspense, since it was hard to predict who was the next victim and exactly when he or she was going to meet their doom. Even when it seemed like it’s finally a happy ending, something unpredictable always happened, and the ending of this particular film is not an exception. Though there were already too many spoilers, I would still love to keep the intrigue about the ending.

The “Alien” movies have already become a legend ever since the first one was released in 1979. The latest sequel is not just a typical horror movie, but it’s also something way more deep and philosophical. We, as human beings, think of ourselves as superior creatures and that could be one of the causes of our global problems. Obviously, watching the “Alien: Covenant” will not change the destructive ways of mankind, but it’s definitely worth seeing at least for the exciting action and beautiful scenery.

Rating: 5/5 aliens

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One Reply to “‘Alien: Covenant’: A bloody night out with Xenomorphs”

  1. Thank you for your very thorough review of ALIEN : Covenant. I saw the tv ad for this movie so I watched Prometheus for th second time to refresh my memory. From your review, it sounds like Ridley Scott has made another “scary as sh%t” movie!

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