Movies

Alien Covenant- Review by HungryOwl

On May 20, 2017 by

Firstly, I must  say that the Screening Rooms in Cheltenham are an amazing Cinema experience. Comfy chairs and leg room – a little table for your refreshments and table service. Plus spotlessly clean loos and a chilled out bar/cafe for you to enjoy before the movie. If you have an Unlimited Card then there is a premium to pay of £5.00 to upgrade, but it is a lovely treat.

We did have a couple at the end of our row though who literally coughed, sneezed and blew their noses throughout the entire film  – anyone would think they had the plague!

So to the film…….I have no real idea about the previous Alien movies because despite them having being on the TV and I think I even got dragged to see one at the cinema years and years ago  – I have no interest and have managed to sleep through every version I have tried to watch. I even joked to FattyCat not to wake me up.

You can blame the excellent Illy Coffee I drank before the movie started, but I actually stayed awake throughout the film…(WOW).  Some of the plot is predictable – the crew wakes up too early on a spaceship and land on a planet which had the right features to be colonized by humans. Then of course they get killed one by one by the Aliens.  Yes we’ve seen this story time and time again, but this well done and there is an empathy with the character who one by one loose their loved ones in the battle with the aliens.

Micheal Fassbender  – plays two androids. I wouldn’t say it was an Oscar winning performance because the androids had no emotions, so it just required him to be as wooden as possible. However, the performance that shone out was that of Katherine Waterston, who plays ‘Daniels’. She is fragile and feisty at the same time. There is also Danny McBride as ‘Tennessee’ who shows us how difficult is to make a decision as a human impartially when you have the responsibility to save you ship and yet your wife is in danger.

The scenic craft’s people deserve a mention – the rooms that ‘David’ had been occupying for 10 years were amazing. There were the most beautiful and disturbing drawings that represent Giger original style, they were so good I literally wanted to reach out and look through them in detail. There was also the most amazing models of the various breeds of Alien that David had cross bred. What a joy it must be to create this sort of art?

I suppose the Alien fan boys may not enjoy the film and say it is just too samey to others that have gone before; but I enjoyed it

2017-05-20