The biggest mistake Prometheus made was being part of the Alien franchise. Imagine how cool it would be to have a high concept, big budget, cosmic horror sci-fi, in which mankind discovers that we had a creator, and that they wished to kill us in the most painful ways possible. In turn, the life we create hates us just as much. It's a sort of Frankenstein's monster story expanded to its logical conclusion. That's partially what we got with Prometheus, but because it was an Alien prequel it had to do the exact same thing as Alien did. So it had to include all the dumbest slasher movie tropes at the expense of all this highbrow philosophical stuff.
Alien: Covenant is a direct sequel to the prequel, and also does exactly the same thing as what both Prometheus and Alien did. It's amazing how much mileage this franchise tries to get out of exact same story beats; a distress signal, an alien planet, a weird spaceship, a hostile parasite that infects the crew and bursts out of bodies, duplicitous androids who adore the monsters, sensible, serious, curly dark-haired woman who can save the day by operating heavy machinery and airlocks. I've just ruined the plot to Alien: Covenant for you, but it is already ruined for you if you've ever seen an Alien movie. You know exactly what's going to happen.
This doesn't work very well as a horror because, gory special effects and spooky tone aside, we already know what's lurking in the shadows. We already know things get less scary the more familiar they become. After this many sequels, Freddy Kreuger had his own rap songs. Covenant somehow doesn't know this, and thinks we'll be scared by all the same stuff again. Where's our rapping space alien?
On top of this, like Prometheus, it has to have its characters act like stupid assholes for there to even be a story. They wander around a planet without helmets and clumsily bumble into danger, often choosing to go off on their own even after they know there are killer monsters on the loose. At one point a character slips in a pool of blood trying to escape a horror, and then a minute later, another character runs to rescue them only ro pratfall in the exact same pool of blood. It's like a Laurel and Hardy bit, only it is accidentally funny instead. You sit there shaking your head, muttering "you fucking morons" each time they manage to mess things up. I felt like I was being trolled by the movie.
Covenant doesn't get a recommendation from me. It's a worse version of what has already come before, and is all the more infuriating because of it.
Oh Look, It's Exactly the Same
The biggest mistake Prometheus made was being part of the Alien franchise. Imagine how cool it would be to have a high concept, big budget, cosmic horror sci-fi, in which mankind discovers that we had a creator, and that they wished to kill us in the most painful ways possible. In turn, the life we create hates us just as much. It's a sort of Frankenstein's monster story expanded to its logical conclusion. That's partially what we got with Prometheus, but because it was an Alien prequel it had to do the exact same thing as Alien did. So it had to include all the dumbest slasher movie tropes at the expense of all this highbrow philosophical stuff.
Alien: Covenant is a direct sequel to the prequel, and also does exactly the same thing as what both Prometheus and Alien did. It's amazing how much mileage this franchise tries to get out of exact same story beats; a distress signal, an alien planet, a weird spaceship, a hostile parasite that infects the crew and bursts out of bodies, duplicitous androids who adore the monsters, sensible, serious, curly dark-haired woman who can save the day by operating heavy machinery and airlocks. I've just ruined the plot to Alien: Covenant for you, but it is already ruined for you if you've ever seen an Alien movie. You know exactly what's going to happen.
This doesn't work very well as a horror because, gory special effects and spooky tone aside, we already know what's lurking in the shadows. We already know things get less scary the more familiar they become. After this many sequels, Freddy Kreuger had his own rap songs. Covenant somehow doesn't know this, and thinks we'll be scared by all the same stuff again. Where's our rapping space alien?
On top of this, like Prometheus, it has to have its characters act like stupid assholes for there to even be a story. They wander around a planet without helmets and clumsily bumble into danger, often choosing to go off on their own even after they know there are killer monsters on the loose. At one point a character slips in a pool of blood trying to escape a horror, and then a minute later, another character runs to rescue them only ro pratfall in the exact same pool of blood. It's like a Laurel and Hardy bit, only it is accidentally funny instead. You sit there shaking your head, muttering "you fucking morons" each time they manage to mess things up. I felt like I was being trolled by the movie.
Covenant doesn't get a recommendation from me. It's a worse version of what has already come before, and is all the more infuriating because of it.