Alien: Covenant: A Tale of Two Tales (An Average Conclusion)

Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light

John Milton, Paradise Lost

As the level of anticipation for this last Alien entry has risen to be nearly palpable, so too rises the level of disappointment of the movies overall. Looking back over the series, you can track the quality of the movies and almost create a roller coaster ride with the line connecting them. The thunderous beginning of the series, followed by twists and turns and corkscrews in the movies that come after. All of these aspects inevitably ending with this movie: a slow and sad end of the ride. Ending a series with a movie like this reminds us all of lessons taught repeatedly throughout many franchises in the last decade: a simple premise  CANNOT uphold 40 years of movies and still remain as fresh as the start. I’m pretty bad at analogies involving roller coasters, but I’m pretty good at being bitter and jaded about movies, so let’s end this project with Alien: Covenant.

Prometheus: The New Testament, But At What Cost? (An Avg. Part 7)

[it] wasn’t what we thought [it] was; I was wrong, we were so wrong…

Audiences in the first viewing that wanted to see an Alien prequel, 2012

The final phase is here: a long-awaited end is in sight to this series and my damned Alien project. It’s been quite a ride to bring opinions to you about movies your parents liked and then pretended to only like one or two of. Weathering two very different versions of dead franchises is no small feat, and we can all be thankful that the task is almost over. But before we go back to exclusively watching Disney movies and participating in the end of the world pandemic, there are two more movies in this franchise to discuss. All of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men had gathered together to allow Damien Lindelof and Ridley Scott to answer the question people never truly wanted answered: just what was that spaceship? And who was that jockey from the original Alien? With the last movies before us, let’s begin the conversation about Prometheus.

‘Alien: Covenant’ Film Review

Grade: D

I’m not sure what to say about ‘Alien: Covenant’, but as far as I can remember, it is one of the most disappointing science-fiction movies since ‘Morgan’. Here’s a little fact! If you remember my review of last year’s ‘Morgan’, I mentioned how the director of that little film was Luke Scott, a.k.a Ridley Scott’s father. Why do I bring up this fact? Well, if you know the movies ‘Alien’ and ‘Prometheus’, then you know the name ‘Ridley Scott’. He has made acclaimed movies (‘Gladiator’, ‘Blade Runner’, ‘The Martian’), and he has made critically divisive movies (‘The Counselor’, ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’). What Ridley Scott wanted to do was to capture the feeling audiences felt when watching ‘Alien’ for the first time, from its opening titles which fade in one by one to the ‘Alien’ theme by Jerry Goldsmith, to its plot which critics have felt was similar, while also serving as a sequel to the divisive ‘Prometheus’, which was a semi-prequel to ‘Alien’ that worked as a visually stunning stand-alone movie, but sadly feels like a video game more than a horror movie worthy of the ‘Alien’ name.

‘Assassin’s Creed’ Film Review

Grade: F

It may have weapons, action, the look of a video game movie and Michael Fassbender, but the film adaptation of one of the most popular video game franchises next to ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and ‘Call of Duty’ is not just the snoozer that this year’s ‘Warcraft’ (another adaptation of a popular video game.) was, it is also the most mindless, confusing, PG-13-rated excuse of a movie that tries to pander to fans and gamers alike, yet can’t work as an actual movie. Besides Fassbender, you also have Marion Cotillard, and Jeremy Irons to join the cast, but they really can’t save this film. Instead, we are left to sit through video game-like cinematography featuring a cameo by a CG-bird that flies every now and then, poorly handled action sequences with the choppiest editing I’ve seen, (which is thankfully not as frustrating as the editing in ‘Moulin Rouge’) and a plot point that seems to flip-flop with the point it’s trying to get across.