It's still one of the best franchises out there.
Alien: Covenant, despite its title, is a fitting continuation of the series that re-invents itself as often and as well as its titular villain. An awesome, roller coaster of a movie, it exhibits pitch-perfect sci-fi horror with expert pacing and awesome production value. It feeds off the energy that this series exudes so well, and leaves us craving ever more (thankfully, Ridley Scott has indeed promised at least two future films). Though attempting to connect its title to the iconic 1979 Alien classic, the film bears far more resemblance to the 2012 prequel Prometheus. Of course, it's a direct sequel to that film, also starring Michael Fassbender, taking place not long after the end of Prometheus (about 15 years, if my notes are correct).
Though Prometheus was criticized by some for its existential themes and broad metaphysics, I found it to be the most engaging of the series, after of course the deeply disturbing original. It gave us that disgusting alien-monster C-section scene, don't forget! Covenant similarly pushes the body horror and does so as befits a sequel: more often, more intense. It also -- though it seems many critics are telling us otherwise -- continues and builds upon the existential crises in its themes and plot. In fact, I found parsing through the mysteries it raises far more engaging than any violence and blood on screen.
It's the same story as all the others in this franchise. A colony ship (yes, the stakes are much bigger here), after suffering malfunctions, receives a signal from a nearby planet and goes to investigate. they discover a seeming paradise, even better than the world they had intended to colonize. Soon the exploration crew discovers a crashed ship, and their attempts to unravel its mystery are paralleled by their desperate fight for survival against vicious, bloodthirsty alien monsters.
How does it differ from the others, then? I don't want to spoil too much, but there is some we can safely mention here. David, the synthetic aboard the Prometheus survived the crash of his and Elizabeth Shaw's hijacked Engineer vessel, as did the black liquid bioweapon he used to destroy that expedition. On this new world, he has continued his experiments with it, though the film fails to explore the many questions that raises. Why did the Engineers create it, or did they create it? Were they going to use it to create life or destroy life? David has been attempting to use it to fashion an ideal form of the iconic alien monster, but still we're not sure why or to what end. We see some o his experiments -- or what we assume are his experiments -- including pod-like flora whose spores float through the air and "impregnate" the humans with the beasts. Later, after David has revealed his experimentation with a type of insect that lays its eggs in a host to be cannibalized, we see a room of eggs we recognize as the Xenomorph eggs, but where did they come from? How did David make those eggs without a Queen? Which came first, the Alien or the creepy slimy egg?
Maybe I was reading too far into it, or not far enough, but the film seemed to raise as many questions as it answered. It makes sense, narratively, of course, but it seems Scott and his team are deliberately withholding some information, some ties between ideas and films that might assuage our anxiety and fill in the blanks (not plot holes, mind, just blank spaces). Of course, even the next film may well answer all; the ending of Covenant is so arrestingly disturbing that most of the audience in the screening I attended stayed long after the credits started rolling.
It's a fabulous film. Enough gore and suspense to sate the horror fans, enough mystery and awe to absorb the sci-fi geeks, and enough action to satisfy those early summer blockbuster cravings. It keeps us the feminist punches, gives the queer theorists even more to chew on (and fret over), and does it all with a knowing wink and some new-fashioned razzle dazzle.
IMDb: Alien: Covenant
No comments:
Post a Comment