Alien: Covenant

In 2012 Ridley Scott released his controversial prequel to the Alien franchise, Prometheus, that saw a group of explorers go in search of the creator to mankind but alas it all goes horribly wrong. There were many who considered the idea of revealing the secrets to what made Alien so fascinating sacrilegious and would remove the magic that caught the imagination of so many fans back in 1979. And while I would rate Alien and Aliens among some of my favourite films, I am more of a casual fan and actually enjoyed Prometheus despite its flaws.

Set ten years later, Alien: Covenant sees a new team on a voyage for a colonising mission with their destination in sight. However, the crew are disturbed during their cryosleep when their ship comes across a weak distress signal from Noomi Rapace's character in the last film and so they change coordinates for her location where she, and David, might have found an alternative planet suitable for humans to live on. Complete with their American version of David, Walter, the crew land and discover a vast yet lifeless planet, which concludes all I'm willing to spoil but of course nothing goes to plan.

That point alone can be a major issue in sci-fi films today as crew members bicker and fight while something nasty lurks in the background before the headcount begins to fall. It bored me in the bland Life sci-fi flick and I quickly gave up on the dreadful The Cloverfield Paradox. However with this coming from the grandfather for these types of films, Ridley Scott manages to keep things fresh enough with characters telling one another not shout as it "doesn't help anything" and while 'Alien' is in the title, the famed director manages to break away from some of the typical cliches to point that I never checked my watch. The film flies by briskly at just under two hours but Scott manages to contain so much to keep Covenant exciting, and not forgetting to mention that this looks visually amazing.

However, I feel oddly in the minority of people who enjoyed this which means that I can only give this a cautious recommendation. For me, this is certainly a cut above the rest and is a film that dares to do more than your conventional blockbuster experience. Frustratingly this does raise a lot of questions and chooses not to provide many answers but it sets the scene in such a way I look forward to seeing how Scott will conclude his trilogy.