Tropic Sprockets / Alien: Covenant

By Ian Brockway

Once more, here is a solid black screen peppered with stars. Ivory white lines come slowly into view as mere shadows floating in negative space creating a pattern…but wait…these are letters… a single word that forms an image: A   L   I   E   N. A film by Ridley Scott.

The latest chapter in the iconic “Alien” series is titled “Alien: Covenant” and while not a total surprise, the film has high octane thrills, sweeping cinematography and a great performance by Michael Fassbender that is iced to perfection.

The action starts aboard a ship called The Covenant and the crew has intentions to colonize a far away planet. Straightaway, a neutrino flares up disrupting the ship’s magnetic field and a fire ignites on board. The captain (James Franco) is burned to death in his sleeping pod before he can be saved. The ship is at low capacity and the crew is depressed.

Instruments pick up a voice singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver and First Mate Oram (Billy Crudup) decides to steer to the signal on an unknown planet, reasoning that habitation will be easier.

He puts boots on the ground, but a couple of the crew unwittingly inhale some strange ebony particles through the ear and up the nose and things go from bad to worse.
The men turn pale and yellow then vomit and choke. Those of us who remember poor Kane (John Hurt) in the first “Alien” know what happens next. Although many are familiar with the creature, the action remains transfixing and suspenseful.

The narrative is greatly helped by the original “Alien” story writer Dan O’ Bannon and by a finely nuanced and opaque performance by Fassbender. You will always be left in the dark with a sense of mystery.

Eerie and frightening it is to see the android David obsessed with what looks like deformity: insects growing human arms, “Exorcist”-like faces twisted in horror, mouths vomiting tentacles and crab-like anthropoids with huge fetal heads. Fleshly mollusks that walk. Ultra-scary it is to realize that like “The Exorcist,”  these extra-terrestrials invariably have the upper hand in evil and there is nothing humans can do. It is up to Branson (Katherine Waterston) and pilot Tennessee (Danny McBride) to try and settle the score.

Rather than spend time with exposition, this story is a real “creature feature” very reminiscent in spirit to the 1979 original.
Nostalgia is well in force and “Covenant” plays it well. The late sable sorcerer and artist H.R. Giger, who singlehandedly designed the sinister texture of this franchise (and sadly shed his body in 2014)  is not far behind.

Young audiences who do not know the first film and its sequel will see “Alien: Covenant” as yet another thrilling monster film, but those of us who remember one Ellen Ripley will audibly cheer, knowing that “in space no one can hear you scream”.

Write Ian at [email protected]

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]