Film Review — Alien Covenant

Ridley’s backtracking prequel-sequel is a messy beast ★★★☆☆

Birthed from the indifference of 2012’s Prometheus, Alien Covenant is a confusing hybrid. At times Ridley Scott’s sequel feels like an apologetic backtrack, a studio mandate to give fans nostalgic aesthetics, xenomorphs, and death. Lots and lots of death.

But links to the first film remain stubbornly in place. Michael Fassbender returns, this time in a duel role, continuing Scott’s fascinating obsessions with love, death and robots that feel more suited to his other great sci-fi work.

The result is more of the same. Vaguely intellectual posturing, supposedly smart people doing silly things, this time with an actual salivating Alien killing machine for this movie’s Ripley clone to combat. All set against a backdrop more National Geographic than LV-427.

Taken as some sort of mutated greatest hits, it’s passable hokum. But the wait continues for frustrated fans looking for answers, or a better tie-in to the original.