Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant represents a pretty sharp correction following Prometheus (a movie that I strongly disliked the first time I saw it, but have softened towards over the last decade.) When Covenant works, it expertly marries the tones of the prequel and the original movie and becomes something fascinating.

When it doesn’t, it starts quoting Milton.

This review contains spoilers and in-depth discussions of the movie’s themes.

Or maybe my tolerance for Paradise Lost influences is just really low. It’s such obvious, low hanging fruit that has been done countless times without adding anything new. David doesn’t need to quote the “serve in Heaven” line to make his position as Android Lucifer clear.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Alien: Covenant is less about the Alien and more about the Covenant, specifically the covenant between God and Man. Or the Creator and his Created, to use more general terms. You can even extend it to the covenant between a commanding officer and his subordinates.

No matter what the two sides are, the agreement is the same: life and protection in return for loyalty and fidelity. When this is honored, everyone prospers. When it is not, or even if one party mistakenly believes that it is not, then it falls apart with disastrous consequences.

We see this played out in almost every notable character dynamic. Oram’s main frustration with the rest of the crew is that he feels like he isn’t respected as their captain. In his mind, the covenant there is shattered specifically because he is so openly religious and faith-filled. Now, of course, he’s wrong. Daniels is right in that they really shouldn’t deviate to this random planet and her reaction has nothing to do with his faith, but once the idea gets stuck in his head there’s no way to shake it out. He becomes dismissive of almost everyone and more dictatorial, and it gets almost everyone under his care killed.

The Engineers tried to massacre us and were annihilated in return. I was a little upset about this particular plot point. Yes, it made sense from a character POV and was inline with David’s motivations, but it just feels like a wasted opportunity. What’s the point in removing the mystery around the original Space Jockey if you’re not going to actually do anything meaningful with his species or culture, or the fact that they created humanity before turning on them? Oh well.

David most clearly and neatly encapsulates this idea because he winds up on both sides of the covenant. The opening scene in particular is worth highlighting. Weyland is proud as David names himself and plays the piano. It’s a smug, self-centered pride, sure, but he still appears to have positive feelings towards his new creation. But as soon as David starts to stray outside of the bounds that Weyland had (implicitly) laid out for him, his expression immediately hardens and he treats David dismissively, like a tool as opposed to a thinking entity.

Later on, David yells in probably the largest, most drastic display of emotion from him across both movies when Oram shoots at the proto-alien he had been communicating with. He wasn’t upset that Oram might have hurt it as much as he was furious that Oram might have damaged the trust that David was building with it, that it might think that David failed to hold up his end of the covenant that only exists in David’s mind due to his position as the proto-alien’s creator.

Daniels and Walter are the only two who show what happens when the trust isn’t broken, but instead rewarded. But their bond isn’t so much about life and protection as much as it is about mutual respect. Even though Walter is an android, Daniels never once treats him like a disposable machine. She treats him like a member of the crew, welcoming him into the funeral for her husband, and being genuinely worried when he’s injured. They’re not a Creator and Created as much as they’re equals, and I think that says a lot.

In case it wasn’t obvious, Michael Fassbender absolutely kills it. David and Walter are two incredibly distinct characters, and it’s immediately obvious who we are looking at whenever one is on screen. I love the differences between them too, and what it tells us about their characters. David is far more expressive. His voice has peaks and valleys, he touches his face, he quotes poetry with abandon, he puts effort into his physical appearance. He’s incredibly human in every way except for the one that matters.

Walter is the opposite. His voice is deeper and flatter. He cannot create and appears to have no interest in learning how. I’m fairly certain that he even blinks less than David. But at the same time, there’s a warmth to him. Even though Walter describes his motivation as “duty,” I still felt like he genuinely cared for Daniels. More so than he did for the rest of the crew. There was no reason for him to mention to her that a certain location looked like it would be a good place to put a cabin, after all.

And then at the end, we have Fassbender as David pretending to be Walter! And it truly felt like David pretending to be Walter! Look, as soon as the camera cut away from their fight, you knew that they would swap places. That’s just What Happens in movies. But I was hoping so hard that it would be different. The thing that convinced me that it wasn’t? When watching the screens, David pressed his fingers against his lips in an almost anxious gesture. Walter would have never done that.

So, so good.

And I haven’t even talked about the “You blow, I’ll do the fingering” scene. I could probably write another thousand words just on that and the religious and sexual undertones that bleed off the screen. The fact that it’s just Fassbender only elevates it and makes it that much stronger.

There are times where even he cannot save a scene, though. Some of the dialogue, like I mentioned earlier, is just lazy Milton quotes that smash us in the face with a sledgehammer just to make sure that we’re not missing the blatant subtext.

While not to the level of Prometheus, characters still love to put their exposed face right next to strange plants and animals when they should definitely know better. Look, I’m not denying that my curiosity would prompt me to get too close to an opening facehugger pod. It probably would, and natural selection would rightfully obliterate me. But Oram had absolutely zero reason to listen to David, and very clearly didn’t trust him. If anything, he should have done the exact opposite of anything the android suggested.

Still, outside of a few spots, everyone’s reactions felt good. Most of these people are not trained soldiers. They’re colonists. They’re just normal people who are absolutely going to freak out when some weird alien starts bursting out of their friend’s back. (Which, sidenote, so so so cool and such a fun twist on the usual chestbursting.)

The gore and kills are strong across the board, and varied enough that I don’t get bored of them. I also really liked the different proto-alien variations that we got leading up to our usual xenomorph. They all looked very strong too. I’m not sure how much of it was CGI versus practical effects, but there was nothing overly distracting. It sounds like a low bar, but you’d be surprised how many movies trip over it.

Our supporting cast was a little threadbare at times, but I somehow still got invested in them. I think it’s because the movie actually lets people grieve. They’re allowed to be horrified and angry and heartbroken over the deaths of their friends and loved ones. They’re allowed to be anxious over their fates. So many movies don’t allow their characters this, especially in the horror genre.

Ultimately, though, this is the middle movie of a trilogy that will almost certainly never get finished, and I would be lying if I said that it didn’t sour things a little. It doesn’t end on a massive cliffhanger, no, and it’s probably for the best that we don’t see the torment that David is about to put Daniels and Tennessee through, but there is still an air of expectation. Maybe I just really want to see David fall to his own creations and continue the cycle that has been laid out.

Random Thoughts

I’d have to rewatch Aliens, but Bishop has an American accent, right? And Ash has an English one? Is an English accent a warning sign that we’re dealing with an evil robot?

I always forget that James Franco is technically in this movie.

RIP Elizabeth Shaw. You deserved so much better. I’m actually really disappointed that we didn’t get to see more of her dynamic with David.

I did like how the black bioweapon that David dropped on the Engineers fell in a helix shape.

Since David was so clearly a Biblical name, I looked into Walter’s name origins to see if he had any connections there too. It does not. Although some have suggested that since W is the fourth to last letter of the alphabet, it’s the perfect mirror to David.

John Denver must really have some staying power if people can still instantly recognize his songs in eighty years.

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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.

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