David's Lab: Last Signs Of Life

Alien - Covenant (2017)

After the risible disappointment of Prometheus and the underwhelming reviews that Alien: Covenant garnered upon its cinema release, I approached the DVD with a great deal of scepticism and low expectations.

And was completely taken aback by how enjoyable it was.

Although a sequel to Prometheus, and yet more backfilling of the xenomorph origin story, the weaknesses of the earlier movie are soon forgotten as we are reminded of how great - on a good day - director Ridley Scott can be at atmospheric world-building.

The crew of the deep space transport ship Covenant are guiding a cargo of 2,000 settlers on the long voyage to potential new home in the stars, when a series of accidents leads them to a 'ghost signal' from a previously unknown planet.

They investigate and discover the remains of a crashed alien spaceship and the soul survivor: the synthetic lifeform David (Michael Fassbender).

To be honest, the Covenant's crew aren't exactly memorable characters - even the wannabe 'last girl', Daniels (Katherine Waterston), is no hard ass Ellen Ripley - but this was a return to the franchise's horror roots, meaning we should be more tolerant of an abundance of chum to seed the water for the sharks to feed upon.

That said, given that they're blue collar working stiffs you have to question the level of training the crew received for such a crucial mission when their default reaction to most problems seems to be immediate panic.

The real stand-out (unsurprisingly) is Fassbender, on whose mighty shoulders the entire enterprise rests.

He is superb as the identical synthetics, the protective Walter of the Covenant's crew and the deranged David, whose programming had allowed him to transform into a terrifying Prospero or Dr Moreau, cultivating his crop of genetically-engineered xenomorphs.

Alien: Covenant isn't quite the Gothic haunted house horror of the original but more the good old fashioned shipwrecked-sailors-trapped-on-an-island-with-a-monster yarn, with a dash of slasher flick mixed in for seasoning.

If it wasn't so beautifully crafted, the film would probably have felt a lot pulpier than it actually does, but it still skates a fine line between serious and gonzo.

The film really comes alive once the stranded crew are rescued from their first encounter with albino xenomorphs by David, and then gradually we learn what he has been up to.

All the elements that initially had me asking 'why has Ridley changed that?' are all gradually explained as David's apocalyptic machinations are made manifest.

I guess, post-Prometheus, I was second-guessing too much and expecting the worst, when in truth the core plot is very tightly scripted.

A worthy addition to the Alien franchise, this has reignited my enthusiasm for more Ridley Scott-helmed Alien movies... something I never thought I'd say again.

Mark "Alien Day" With Covenant Prequel

The Crossing, an official prologue short to Alien: Covenant, reveals what happened to crew members Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and the synthetic David after the events of Prometheus. Set aboard an abandoned Engineer vessel, Dr. Shaw repairs David as they continue their search for humanity’s creators.

Alien - Prometheus (2012)

Right, let's get this out the way to start with: Prometheus is a good film, but not great.

There are plot holes (some of which, I guess, can be handwaved as 'the mysteries of an inhuman intelligence and its alien motivations'), there's at least one moment of giggle-stifling silliness (a key character dies under a 'rolling' spaceship like a cartoon mouse under the wheel of a car) and some very Lost-centric weird character reactions.

This latter I'm blaming totally on the unsubtle footprint of co-scriptwriter Damon Lindelof - who, of course, wrote a lot of Lost.

There are some leftfield plot twists along the way, at least one is very obviously foreshadowed, but no-one seems at all phased by these revelations and, much like on the old TV show, no-one talks about the twists and what they mean to the crew of the ship.

For instance, no-one ever addresses the fact that one of their number, the android David (Michael Fassbender), can recognise and operate the alien technology when the crew first encounters it. This is more than just knowing the creature's language given that their "interfaces" appear to be just runes carved into rock.

However, Prometheus does raise some interesting questions about the creation of life and the relationship between "creator" and "created", father and off-spring - the need for children to replace their parents etc, although I'm not convinced it deals with them in any kind of profound way.

At its heart this is a solid sci-fi flick, and under the guidance of Alien and Blade Runner's Ridley Scott it looks incredible, making no bones about being set in the same universe as the Alien franchise - from the importance of the Weyland corporation to the horseshoe spaceship found by the crew of the Nostromo back in the original Alien, along with its "space jockey" pilot.

Scientists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) have discovered a series of pictograms on Earth that suggest that we were visited by aliens millennia ago. They hypothesise that these "engineers", as they call them, created life on Earth (although that's quite a leap from a few cave paintings of giants pointing at the stars) and see the pictograms as an invitation to come and meet our makers.

An expedition, funded by the Weyland corporation, represented by the frosty Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) and her android assistant David, takes the science team to a distant planet where a landing strip and a large, pyramidal building is found.

Exploring the "pyramid", the team come across a number of stone vials, the body of a dead "engineer" and a large stone head, and it becomes clear that what they have found is not the source of human life but something far more terrifying.

Thankfully, for those not following along, ship's captain Janek (Idris Elba) gives a very heavy-handed info-dump monologue at one stage summarising the backstory... which is convenient.

Let's be clear, although set in the same universe, this is not an "Alien" film. It has a very different vibe to it, but it is impossible to divorce Prometheus from that well-loved franchise (especially the first two movies).

There are clear nods though, like meeting the crew of the Prometheus around the ship's mess table and David the android - a spectacular performance from Fassbender - does become increasingly creepy as the plot progresses.

Outside of Fassbender and Theron though the acting is nothing really to write home about, largely because the character's aren't that well developed. Try as she might Rapace can never turn Shaw into another Ellen Ripley, and a large problem I had with the film was that none of the central characters were strong enough to gain my empathy.

The script also suffers from more clichés than you would hope and much of the dialogue (as exemplified by Janek's dialogue mentioned above) teeters on the mediocre.

I was impressed by the visuals, but I really couldn't care two hoots for the characters - which runs totally contrary to the emotions generated by the protagonists of both Alien and Aliens. For all the running, screaming, explosions and CGI creatures, Prometheus feels quite hollow and, like David, soulless.

That said, the very final scene is pure fanservice for those who've come to the movie out of their love for the established Alien mythos and is almost worth the price of a ticket alone for the questions it raises...

A lot of reviews I've read state that you shouldn't go into this film with your expectations too high, and not to expect it to be of the quality of Alien, but Ridley Scott has had over 30 years to hone his cinematic craft since then.

He would be the first to tell you how brilliant he was and so, while the film's main flaws lie in with its script, Scott cannot be wholly excused and must share some of the blame for not delivering a more substantial story.

Prometheus is a triumph of spectacle over substance. With some expansion and development of the plot and characters, it could have been a classic, but nevertheless it's an enjoyable, exciting adventure that certainly paves the way - as Ridley did back in 1979 - for a whole new mythology.

Happy Birthday, David