Alien: Covenant
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: John Logan and Dante Harper
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Carmen Ejogo, Demián Bichir
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Rated PG-13 | 122 Minutes
Release Date: May 19, 2017

The truth is that while I liked Alien: Covenant, I didn’t love it. What’s tragic, aside for the future the prequel sets humanity up for, is that all it would have taken to make the film phenomenal was some small tweaks and changes.

Alien: Covenant lacks the same emotional heights sci-fi fans associate with Ridley Scott’s film of 1979 or James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, though it’s not without merit. Chief among the complaints is that the new film seems to sit on the franchise’s laurels rather than push it forward in the way Casino Royale did for James Bond or Logan did for X-Men. It’s been 38 years since the original Alien thriller, but this movie lacks some of the lauded learnings and innovations of modern science fiction cinema.