Paper thin, non-existent, or badly defined characters that we don't care about (I'm not including David, who was a character excellently established in the last film)...
- The Ripley clone character 'Daniels' (who is essentially the main "hero") is a walking shadow of nothingness. Remember that scene in Alien, before the creature is even seen, where Ripley defies the order of Dallas to protect the ship's quarantine. Even though she knows Kane's life is in danger. She's smart, she's strong and doesn't let fear or emotion cloud her judgment. We thought in that moment... oh, this is who she is. I couldn't tell you one damn thing about Daniels' character. Before anybody says "Hey but there is that one similar scene where Daniels objects to landing on the new planet". No, because her position in that argument is no more valid than the opposing position. If the new planet had turned out to be Paradise, she would have been wrong. Ripley was always right to not allow Kane back onto the ship, alien, or no alien. Beside, what does Daniels position in that argument tell us about who she is? She doesn't effect the plot in anyway, everything happens to her. Her friendship with Walter is sketched about as thinly as it possibly could be, which is amazing considering the last act hinges it on massively.
- Oram's character is "I am religious person" and he even says it out loud to the camera as soon as he wakes up, so we get the subtle hint. Except being religious isn't a character and nothing is done with it anyway. Early on he is also setup as an ineffectual commander because he says he is, out-loud to the camera and then nothing is done with that either. Is there a scene where his bad leadership, or his religious faith, positively, or negatively effect the plot? Does he land on the new planet because of his faith, or because of poor leadership? No, it was a perfectly logical decision in a bad situation. If anything, his actions show him to be a determined leader which is the opposite of the character as written in his dialogue.
- Tennessee the pilot is the closest thing to a real character. He has a fun personality for a start ("Personality goes a long way" - Pulp Fiction quote). He also makes decisions that effect the plot. e.g. taking the Covenant down to try and rescue the wife he loves and the rest of the crew. He considers the risks and then acts. When he learns his wife is dead, he is devastated but then pulls himself together and gets on with things for the good of the crew. I felt like I knew who this guy was and therefore didn't want him to die.
A few other random irritations...
- What could take me out of this funeral scene about a character I know nothing about more...? I know, an advert for Jack Daniels. In 'Alien: Resurrection' (the previous holder of the 'worst Alien movie' award) it had that scene where a cube of whiskey is liquidised by a laser. It was silly as sh*t but at least the makers were trying, not just sticking in a product placement. Then we cut to Oram being angry that they are having a 5-minute funeral. What human acts like that?!
- The magical "ahhhhh who gives a f*ck, it's only a dumb space movie. I cared about believability in the first movie but now, whatever" aliens. The first lot go from a sentient mist, to an almost full-grown beasty in 5-minutes. Later the facehugged 'David' alien is born fully formed in 5-minutes and is then fullgrown 5-minutes after that. The lackluster CGI (replacing the brilliant practical FX of previous entires), shaky-cam and choppy "action" editing did them no favours what so ever. Does making the aliens move so fast that we can't see them, make them scarier? No, because we can't see them!
- It was very quick but there was an unfinished CGI shot toward the end. I'd need to double check but I'm pretty sure.
- The constant (unearned) references to the spooky Alien musical theme really started to grate. It felt like a videogame score that's only goal is "Hey remember how you felt when you watched that movie you actually liked?".
- The pointless and stupid reference to the famous scene of Ripley against the forest TV screen was an eye roller.
- I liked Prometheus more than most because it had a sense of wonder and exploration. It asked questions about who we are, where we are from and also what the origins of the Space-Jockey species was. Despite all it's other flaws, that feeling of being shown something unknown propelled it along rather well. In Covenant we are just watching people discovering something we knew from the last movie. The big themes that Prometheus struggled with are not central to this movie. David has a god complex for sure but that's one guy who turns up late into the film. Yet we still have to endure a ponderous opening scene about the nature of existence before the film can begin. That kind of scene would have been a fine opening to Prometheus (and maybe some faneditors will make that happen) but not here.
- The whole last act of the movie hinged on not knowing a plot twist that the movie was convinced to be totally genius and brilliant. But was in fact blatantly obvious. Hint movie: When you cutaway just before showing a character is killed, that is telling the audience they are not really dead. When that character has stated out loud, that he wants to kill mankind and create his own race of aliens and there is a colony ship in orbit full of human hosts and frozen embryos... I think we know where the film is going. So we just have to sit there trying not to check our watches while the inevitable and tension free finale plays out. We've all seen Data/Lore in ST:TNG and know how this works. Oh my god, Walter is really David! zzzzzzzzzzzz
'Alien: Resurrection' was bad but I know I felt something when those characters died because they were characters (written by Joss Whedon). Wrong director, right script? Covenant = Right Director, no script. Ridley Scott should not be allowed to approve/commission his own scripts anymore. When he's directing somebody else's work like his last film 'The Martian', then great, green light it. I don't even think 'Covenant' can be fanedited right now into a good movie but as always, I hope somebody can prove me wrong. Maybe a David focused short?
(By the way, the surface stuff was all fine. It looked fine, good design, good acting etc).
Bet you wished you hadn't asked.