Alien: Covenant (2017) Review

Alien: Covenant is the 2017 science-fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott, written by John Logan and Dante Harper, and starring Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, and Danny McBride.

Introduction
As a disclaimer, I'd like to let you know that I'm not very familiar with the Alien lore. I know some things and have heard of certain things about Alien to get a basic understanding of it. This is probably my first Alien movie I've seen or maybe not. I've probably seen an Alien movie before but I just don't remember. This is the first Alien movie that I remember seeing. I tell you this to say that I'm not going to judge the other iterations from the classic 1979 film. So, for a newcomer such as me, what do I think of Alien: Covenant? Well, it kinda sucks. Let me explain.

Positives
I'll start with the positives first. The cinematography looks stellar. It's a beautiful looking film. Framing looks good. The environmental design looks cool. The use of practical effects here is good. The film does use CGI here at times, but for the most part, the film's visuals look good. Sound design is solid.

The actors, for the most part, give solid performances.

Negatives
Although the film looks great, we should know by now that visuals aren't everything. The script is terrible. Character composition is lackluster. You don't care about the characters. A lot of things happening on screen doesn't make very much sense. I can't really say I blame the actors in this film because the script is so terrible. The actors are trying to give very hard-hitting performances but the characters written for the script are so bad. And the dialogue is so bad too.

The horror element to this film is very boring and uninteresting. They utilize the aliens in some of the most uncreative and uninspired ways possible and the script writes these characters in the cliched way where they make irrational decisions. Like, for example, there was a scene where this guy goes out to take a smoke and he does something to trigger an even that causes him to get killed later. A lot of predictable things like that happen throughout this movie. Some character goes out on their own and they're doing something and you expect something to jump out or something to happen. It's so predictable.

Conclusion
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a completely terrible film. It's actually a competent film. On a technical level, it's a pretty solid movie. The use of lighting is pretty solid. I like its cinematography. I like Ridley Scott as a director and he can make some good films, but I just think this movie could have been made a lot better than this. But, when it comes to screenwriting, this film just falls apart for me. The character composition was weak. The storytelling was dull. The movie felt cliched and uninteresting for most of the runtime because it doesn't do anything creative or interesting with its source material. I don't know if a hardcore Alien fan may like this, but I didn't like it very much. It's a bad mediocre film in my eyes.

Score: C-