Alien: Covenant (2017)

Monday was a holiday for us here in Canada as we celebrated Victoria Day. I had taken an extra day off on Friday with my accumulated overtime from April’s deadline turning it into a four day weekend and it was still incredibly busy and hectic however, my husband and I did manage to take some time to go see Alien: Covenant. The goal this year is to at least see all the anticipated movies in theatres, so far I have only missed one which is pretty good for an almost half year mark.

We both love the Alien franchise. To be more accurate, I love the Alien franchise because my husband sat me down years ago in our early dating days to watch it and it was awesome. We both enjoyed Prometheus and now, time for some Alien:Covenant.

Lets check it out!

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Amy Seimetz

The crew of a colony ship, bound for a remote planet, discover an uncharted paradise with a threat beyond their imagination, and must attempt a harrowing escape. – IMDB

 Alien: Covenant is back and it takes place 10 years or so after the events of Prometheus. The crew and their ship of 2000 colonists is on their way to a planet called Origae-6. After many tests, Origae-6 has proved to meet all the tests for colonization. Despite taking years upon years, the crew is set on cryosleep. However, in a not so routine way of waking up, they are intercepted which affects the functionality of the ship, Covenant which ends up hearing signs of civilization in a fuzzy transmission and with the simple analysis, their new captain Oram (played by Billy Crudup) ends up making the decision to land to scout out the area despite the reluctance of his second, Daniels, played by Katherine Waterston. As part of the crew stays in the ship and the rest land, the crew on this remote planet ends up finding a familiar scene that we all know from Prometheus. Here is where the link starts and they start getting weird occurences that as the audience, we get to see have started affected the crew and people who know about the franchise already know very well which this direction will be. Except, Alien: Covenant takes a turn to make sure that its story isn’t all about aliens but rather its a new direction to hint towards advanced technology and android versus humanity and playing God. Whether that is a good change or not? I guess that depends what you expect from Alien: Covenant. For us, it does make a nice change because it gives the Alien franchise a new direction instead of their rather predictable Xenomorphs slaughters the space crew storyline. Xenomorphs are fantastic and if you are a fan of them, they are also wildly underused here. However, their presence can invisibly be felt in the latter half as they have been yet again changed a little more.

Alien: Covenant is a hard one to review and its taken me a few days to sit down and think about it a little more to let me feelings sort out further. The results of my thinking is there are pros and cons to this movie. It is important to say that I have seen and enjoyed (for the most part) the Alien franchise. We are huge fans of Prometheus as well as the first two movies and we honestly don’t have a huge issue with the 3rd and 4th although we do acknowledge that it is rather flawed in many ways however, the entertainment value is still there. With that said, Alien: Covenant has a lot of good, in fact there are some great moments here. One of the biggest pros here is the visuals. Visually, this movie is fantastic. There are so many scenes that build so much atmosphere and character to the remote planet they land on. It is incredible to see. There is quite a bit of detail as well. Leading to that, Ridley Scott, whether we are talking about Alien or Prometheus and even in Alien: Covenant is masterful at building tension and creating atmosphere. There is a lot of that here as well. The world is elevated mostly because of these two elements. Finally, the cast here that gets more screen time does a good job. There is no doubt that Michael Fassbender is a great actor. He has been in many movies that has proved that he can do a wide array of different roles and capture what the character he needs to portray and deliver something great. In Alien: Covenant, he is one man with two roles. If you were wondering what happened to David from Prometheus, you will get your answer here. He also plays mostly as Walter, who is the resident android on Covenant, as he calls himself an updated version which has its pros and cons as well which the movie will slowly let you learn. In this case, Michael Fassbender as David and Walter create some of the most engaging scenes as well as create depth for the story they want to tell here.

However, the one thing I’m hesitating on being incredibly enthusiastic about here is the story arcs they choose to take. It definitely doesn’t fall in the fault of execution because like I said, the tension and atmosphere was done well and if in the hands of someone less capable than Ridley Scott, this might be less appealing. Here’s where my dilemma lies. An Alien movie should have more aliens, the Xenomorphs here are far and few. They have some pretty generic scenes that are pretty predictable at this point. They almost mirror the first movie such as the Xenomorph hanging out in the ceiling before attacking or the egg with the face huggers and then we have the little creatures breaking out of bodies. I don’t think these are spoilers mostly because they are expected in this franchise at this point, however, perhaps playing with the audience’s anticipation of these moments comes in the equation here where we know more than the characters in the story and if we connected with those characters, we would feel more tense and stressed out because we already know what is going to happen. Maybe this is where the uneasiness comes as well because there are a lot of characters and the only reason I even know their names is thanks to IMDB because they completely went over my head while I was watching it. It also says something about how memorable they are especually when our femal protagonist Daniels played by Katherine Waterston did a good job but somehow everyone was overshadowed by what seems like the main plot with Michael Fassbender who was a much better developed character(s). Somehow with a mesh of characters that didn’t quite get the depth they deserved and a plot that was rather predictable and familiar but also lacking in the appearance of the Xenomorphs. Especially when it attempts to surprise in some parts and yet somehow didn’t manage to do it for myself. 

While it sounds like I didn’t like the movie, I honestly did. Alien:Covenant does a lot of good. I’m a sucker for movies with great atmosphere and beautiful settings because its not only visually appealing but a thrilling and engaging world. While I might have liked more Xenomorph appearances, I do like that they are trying to expand the story to give it another fresh direction. Plus, even if some characters did lack depth for the most part, the few that got the development was done well. Not to mention, it still felt self-contained despite linking back to a previous movie. 
Have you seen Alien:Covenant? Do you like the Alien franchise? Which is your favorite movie from the franchise?

This is the End (2013)

Continuing with my 2013 movie viewing! I have a few more to go before the year ends, probably even heading into 2014.  Lets get the show on the road since the next few days might be more 2014 plans rather than movie reviews.  My boyfriend wanted a comedy the other night and honestly, I don’t own a lot of those so This Is The End was the first to drop into the DVD viewing. Despite everything, I’m still a bit skeptical since I don’t like a lot of similar humor to others and I have a hard time being able to laugh at something that actually looks ridiculous stupid. Lets see if it did manage to give me some LOLs 😉

Director: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogan

Cast: Seth Rogan, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson

Good buddies Jay Baruchel go to visit Seth Rogan in Los Angeles.  After a day of hanging out, Seth convinces Jay to go to James Franco’s housewarming party where a bunch of celebrities are also.  Reluctantly, Jay goes and during the night, the apocalypse hits them.  Jay, Seth, James along with Craig Robinson and Danny McBride are now barricaded in James Franco’s house until help arrives.

First of all, I’d like to make it clear than when I see Jay Baruchel on screen, I can’t help but cheer a little and hope he does good because he represents Montreal, my beautiful city.  The first shot when he arrived, he was sporting a Habs cap and even though I’ve given up on hockey, it does represent the city very much. I did a little ” You go, Jay” plus fist pump while my boyfriend shook his head and smiled.  And then by the end of the movie, I started thinking that I really can’t wait for How To Train a Dragon 2 and I wanted to see some more of Hiccup….

Second, I honestly enjoyed this a lot more than I expected.  James Franco doing funny is something I haven’t quite grasped yet and Jonah Hill really doesn’t tickle my funny bone (or maybe he does because the funny bone doesn’t make me laugh either).  Anyways, I’m not going to get technical with my terms.  You get what I mean.  And then Craig Robinson and Danny McBride is who again? I’ve never seen these dudes before so okay, the only guy fairing any form of humor for me was Jay and Seth.  But, this was funny in a stupid, shut off my brain sort of way.  And I was in one of those moods, so it all worked out.

The BEST part of the movie though was not possibly the six guys but rather all the cameos from the other celebrities.  Emma Watson was hilarious and awesome.  Channing Tatum was a huge OMG LOL moment, if you know what I mean.  I haven’t decided if I really liked Michael Cera’s cameo but it was a bit weird in my opinion.  Rihanna did get a few moments and Jason Segel had one also (and I spent a few moments trying to remember his name).  I’m sure there was a whole bunch of other people that I was naming as they popped up but I can’t remember them now.

I’m going to have to be extremely honest and say that some parts of this movie did have me yawning and I think, it just has to do with not really enjoying the humor they wanted me to like.  Still, I had a blast in the beginning and at the end.  Plus, its like a comedic way of setting out a story about bromance and at the very end, redemption/selflessness.  Whatever you want to call that.

All in all, I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as the bunch of reviews that I did see when it first came out but surprisingly, a lot of it worked for me also.  The cameos were extremely memorable and hilarious and the guys sported some nice comedic moments as well.  Not my favorite comedy but it was a very different experience and a pretty enjoyable one at that! 🙂 Comedy is something I don’t want to say I’d recommend or not, its so personal so if you like these guys, you’d want to give it a shot. If not, well, what can I say, maybe you want to see Emma Watson, not as Hermione but still being pretty bad ass? 😉

What did you think of This Is The End? Are you a fan of any of these six guys?