The latest Alien movie, Alien: Covenant, continues the established style of "semi" remakes, taking new actors, new digital technology, and building a story around it that takes the story progression away from the original films. It didn't fail in Star Wars, so it won't fail in the new Alien. When you mix in the story of Prometheus android David, it's not an exact copy, as one might think.
The story hasn't changed much since the first Alien, once again the crew wakes up at the beginning of the film, this time not in peace, but after a ship crash, they find a habitable planet again and head there again. And you know how it ends again, almost the entire crew dies and the evil Aliens are killed.
It's a familiar story, and after watching the film I realized that nothing surprised me. What I expected and anticipated happened. I have followed all the "quality" Alien movies and unfortunately it was more Prometheus that gave us the question of how Aliens actually came to be. Alien: Covenant just finally explains it to us with no more complexities.
The cast is perfectly adequate, just different races, different religions and experiences, just meat for the slaughter without us knowing anything about them. This time, the crew doesn't even have time to wake up and their commander is already dead, which is thanks to the biggest star, James Franco, for managing to die right at the start.
Who holds the film together the most is Michael Fassbender, who manages to inject the most charisma into his dual roles of David and Walter. The others still have a lot to play or run away from.
There's also a lot to enjoy, both the pre-Intruder form from Prometheus and the Alien from the original films. All of which the skilled hands of CGI filmmakers can already create without the need to find a tall, thin actor. You're already familiar with all the films, so you're simply no stranger to the space killer, and you'll enjoy all the details as you wish.
The new Alien isn't as bad a film as it might seem, perhaps not up to either of the Alien tetralogy, but better than Prometheus, and cleverly linking the Prometheus universe with the Alien films. You can see a lot of work and experience behind it, both from the director and the actors and creators of all sorts of monsters and details.
If it didn't have any better brethren, it would be a well thought out sci-fi about a space urchin, but once it has enough very famous films in the family, it really has a hard time, it's just the same case as The Hobbit vrs Lord of the Rings, or both Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts. No other film to an established franchise will ever be better than the films that came before it. Everest has already been conquered and there is simply no going higher.
Photo © 20th Century Fox
Original release of this article November 26, 2021 – Kritiky.cz
