Stripped down, bloody and most importantly terrifying, Alien: Covenant is a brilliant addition to the series that will leave your heart beating fast.
Ridley Scott and those dastardly xenomorphs are back for another round and this time it is the Covenant crew who are on the menu.
‘Ding, ding!’ Let the fight begin!
Set after the events of Prometheus, the crew of the colony ship Covenant head for a remote planet which, of course, turns out not to be the paradise they expected.
This is an Alien film after all folks and a fine one at that.
After Prometheus flopped at the box office with audiences criticising it for being pretentious and nonsensical, director Ridley Scott has gone back to basics with Alien: Covenant and it works wonderfully.
The film may not bring anything new or refreshing to the big screen but it’s a thrilling experience that’s guaranteed to leave you cowering in your seat in fear.
The cruel xenomorphs have always been frightening but Scott really racks up the tension in this instalment which is bloody, gory and startlingly violent.
Alien has never been this blood-soaked or terrifying before and its quite simply electrifying.
At only two hours long the action is fast and dynamic and although the odd scene is rushed, the ending was particularly hurried, it moves along at a neat pace which ensures that you’re gripped throughout.
Sure, we have seen a lot of this before but it is not all the same old shtick.
Scott does further explore the origins of the xenomorphs which we meet in the original 1979 Alien film and will certainly intrigue fans of the franchise.
It adds another interesting element to Covenant that’ll leave you with burning questions that Scott will hopefully answer soon as there are plenty more Alien films planned.
Also, even though the trailers and posters are portraying Katherine Waterston’s Daniels as being the new Ripley, I can assure you she very much isn’t.
Waterston does put in a fantastic performance as Daniels, a strong and smart leader who is also vulnerable behind the muscle, but the real star of the show is the brilliant Michael Fassbender.
Fassbender returns as the wicked android David who’s as psychotic as ever, but he also plays the more sensitive Walter, a follow-up model who was made without many of David’s human traits.
Every scene featuring Fassbender is just electric and the camera relishes his two androids interacting with each other, a truly unnerving sight.
Like Fassbender’s David, Alien: Covenant is both fascinating and terrifying at once and is a fine return to form for director and creator Ridley Scott and his crew of horrifying xenomorphs.
Just don’t watch it alone.
