‘Alien: Covenant’ Review: In
Space, No One Can Hear You Be This Stupid(...)
If Michael Fassbender’s “synthetic” character David didn’t seem
Batty-esque before, he sure as hell does in
Covenant.
Fassbender is the clear lead, from the first scene. David meets his
creator, Peter Weyland, and pinpoints an irony: the mortal Weyland
wants to meet whoever created humans, while David has already met
his creator and has a potentially infinite lifespan.
The film then jumps to the year 2104 and the colonization ship
Covenant. A newer synthetic is onboard: Walter, also
played by Fassbender.(...)
Scott and writers John Logan, Dante Harper, Jack Paglen,
and Michael Green are vastly less interested in the mythology of
Alien than they are in the stories of David and
Walter.(...)
To be clear: Michael Fassbender is very good in this film, as he
was in
Prometheus. His talent aside, the problem is
twofold. This is a bad
Alien film because it fundamentally
misunderstands what makes a good
Alien film; also, it’s
just not very good outside of the lead performance.(...)
Crudup’s choice to land on this strange planet is more logical than
stupid, but most of the decisions he and others make afterwards are
just idiotic.(...)
Here lies the problem: a good
Alien movie does not feature
a) characters making massively stupid decisions and b) a synthetic
character as the lead. Even
Alien3 gathered the
latter point, if not the former. Waterston would make a fine
Ripley-esque lead, if she didn’t feel like a supporting character
in David’s relentless quest of creating something perfect. No
doubt, there’s a way to make another good
Alien movie. And
there’s a way to place a phenomenal dual performance from one of
our best actors in a genre piece musing on the philosophy of life
and creation.
Alien: Covenant doesn’t know how to be
either of these things.
http://www.slashfilm.com/alien-covenant-review-second-take/
04/10