Alien Covenant has clearly divided the critics, and it is very easy to see both sides. Scott has certainly listened to the die-hards after Prometheus, and the fan-boy button-pushing starts almost straight away and is very pleasing. In spite of his previous reservations, Ridley Scott does manage to restore some of the fear of the titular beastie, with the new neomorph in particular providing creature attack scenes that are swift, sharp and full-on. A very controlled and contemplative prologue under the opening credits swiftly sorts out some - but certainly not all - of the plot head-scratchers that Prometheus gave, and Covenant certainly provides a successful progression of the xenomorph and an engaging explanation of how it came to be. However, the links to the previous prequel (this is getting complicated) are also what undoes Covenant to an extent, as the new film judders to a halt whenever the big themes of creation, free will and chance are seemingly needed to be discussed, especially in a patience-testing sequence of scenes about two-thirds of the way through. However, for the most part the film works very well: the action set-pieces are great (two of them in the final act in particular), the idea of the colonist main crew all being couples adds a good dynamic and more emotional heft, the plotting and dialogue are notably better than Prometheus, and Waterston, Fassbender and (amazingly) McBride are all very good. From the sci-fi angle, Covenant looks superb, and the degree of replaying a number of the franchise's Greatest Hits is just on the right side of acceptable. What is expected to be the next (closer) of this trilogy that links directly into the original Alien is set up effectively, but Covenant also leaves one gigantic plot-hole regarding Alien/Aliens that will be very interesting to see how it is resolved.
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