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Alien: Covenant

This film, Alien: Covenant, takes place around 10 years after Prometheus. I think I get the meaning of the previous title - Greek mythology, creator of mankind, etc, but I wasn't too sure of the significance of the word 'covenant', aside from being a pact or agreement of sorts. So I was slightly disturbed to find this example from a site called the Christian Crier;

This was the same covenant which God made with Abraham (Gen 17:2). In this covenant Abraham asked God “Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other” And the Lord God said, "What the fuck, Abe?!? I didn't ask you to slaughter them! Fucking sling your hook, you bloodthirsty clungenut!(Gen 15:8-10).

This is, more or less, gospel, and without wishing to spoil anything for those who haven't seen it, there is a fair bit of cutting, along with slicing, beheading, eviscerating, and so on, in Alien: Covenant. But it seems the wider definition of 'promises made to humanity by god' probably works best for the film. I quite like the attempts Ridley Scott has made with this and Prometheus to imbue some deeper philosophical rumination into what is basically a slasher horror film series. I still don't know if he's religious, agnostic, atheistic or just a massive piss-taker. Not sure it matters, but it's a curiosity.

So the film itself. Let me begin by saying nothing in this series will ever top the original Alien. The films that followed were good to middling but the punch has been and gone. In saying that, I've enjoyed all of the sequels and prequels (even the much loathed Prometheus) for varying reasons and to varying degrees. So I'm not going to start complaining that this new installment is too similar to the original or that it's almost as stupid as its predecessor. Fair points but not really valid considering the gigantic touchstone of comparison that weighs around every Alien film's neck.

Something the prequels have that the original four films didn't is Fassbender's David. In this film he plays against a synthetic model of himself in Walter. A technical upgrade but not as thoughtful or creative. Fassbender is the best thing in the film and his David is an unsettling hybrid of doctors Moreau and Mengele. He's one of the best screen villains in a long time and the final sequence of the film is deliciously downbeat and ominous.

The crew of the Covenant are ostensibly interchangeable, except for Katherine Waterston as neo-Ripley, Daniels. She's our eyes and heart within the escapade and is also the least stupid of all the 'intelligent, professional, practical' people aboard the ship. There needs to be a lot of disbelief suspension to get us through to the 'meat' of the proceedings. And what an array of meat there is too.

There were some freaky mutations of the text-book Alien, including one that had a head like a cloudy white marble and also a few nice touches lifted from Blade Runner (the nail on the necklace and David's line to Daniels, "That's the spirit!"). All in all, a pleasantly gruesome way to spend an evening.

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