Back to basics.

Ridley Scott is nothing if not persistent. With the much-hyped Blade Runner revival not too far on the horizon, there are clearly a select few properties in his back catalogue that sit very close to the director’s heart. Like a favoured child, however, it’s abundantly clear that the Alien series is the one entry in his filmography that he’s willing to go the extra mile for. It’s been the best part of four decades since the first entry in the franchise though and, while Alien’s influence should never be underestimated, the subsequent years have become a classic lesson in the Hollywood law of diminishing returns.

Blazing an acid-scorched trail for the sci-fi genre, Alien and its sequel’s blend of high-concept action, blood-thirsty intelligence, and nightmare-inducing creatures introduced a world of unimaginable terror to an unsuspecting audience. Yet, despite this initial burst of critical and commercial success, you’ll be hard pressed to find a film franchise that’s turned so sour, so rapidly. In the years since the release of 1986’s Aliens, there have been sequels and spin-offs so insistent on scraping the Alien barrel that, by the release of Alien vs Predator: Requiem, the once lauded series was all but dead.

That was, until Ridley Scott decided to dip his toe back into the universe and rewind to its very beginnings with Prometheus. In pure financial terms, the prequel was a success, effectively resurrected the franchise, yet it left a fanbase divided; threatening to derail any extended plans before they’d even warmed up. Undeterred, 20th Century Fox and Scott ploughed ahead but, with question marks left hanging over its head and with the pressure on to return the franchise to former glories, Alien: Covenant simply must deliver.

On course for Origae-6, the crew of the colony ship Covenant intercept a radio transmission from a human located on a nearby, previously unknown, planet. On discovering that this new planet appears far better suited to colonisation than their intended destination, and against the objection of executive officer Daniels (Katherine Waterston), ship captain Oran (Billy Crudup) orders the team to investigate. With two-thousand colonists and a thousand embryos on-board the ship, however, this potentially perilous divergence brings with it incredible risk, but the crew decide it’s one worth taking. As they begin their scouting mission, it rapidly becomes clear that this uncharted paradise is far more dangerous than they could ever imagine as they discover a threat beyond their imagination and must fight for their lives to escape it.

With the ever-increasing bloat that had infected the franchise post-Aliens, it was becoming evident that things were becoming unsustainable. While Prometheus chose to take a deep-dive into creation theory and far too far from the road many wanted/expected, Ridley Scott’s perseverance with exploring the Alien world from a theological angle was, at the very least, a welcome relief from the franchise’s descent into a world of dumbed-down idiocy.

While Alien: Covenant continues to explore these ideas of creation and religion, it makes the smart move of going back to basics and focusing on the elements that made the original films so successful. Dispensing with the redundant contrivances of the latter sequels, Alien: Covenant strips things back completely, melding together the carnal horrors of Alien with the action beats of Aliens to form a hybrid that, while far from original, at least appears focused.

If this all feels like a rather regressive defence mechanism for a franchise on its kneed, that’s because it is. This isn’t so much Ridley Scott and Fox riding their xenomorph back into battle, all guns blazing, but rather a cautious reintroduction of Alien back into the public consciousness. After years of damage to their product, it seems understandable to fall back on nostalgia to get your audience back on board, but the cynical nature of this tactic ultimately feels rather empty. From the classic Facehuggers to Officer Daniels’s uncanny Ripley resemblance, it’s clear nostalgia is Alien: Covenant’s primary currency in a bid to steady the ship and win back the faith of a severely jaded audience.

This clear lack of adventure feeds into Alien: Covenant’s one fatal flaw and the cardinal sin for any aspiring Alien instalment – it suffers from a distinct lack of genuine scares. The film feels so deficient in originality that, for every idiotic character choice to open a door when they shouldn’t or feel the need to look directly into a slimy, pulsating pod; the numbingly obvious outcomes that play out drain it of all the raw, visceral horror that made Alien so monumental. While the xenomorphs are as terrifying as ever, and you’re always going to get some mileage from a good, old jump-scare but, when the characters and their actions lack both reason and empathy, things aren’t looking good.

Expendable characters have been a staple for the Alien franchise since the very beginning but, by filling itself to the brim with largely faceless and wholly unengaging characters, Covenant struggles to sustain itself. We can all accept that few of the extended cast from any given Alien film will likely end up as xenomorph-fodder at some point, but the key ingredient that Covenant sorely lacks is any tangible form of empathy in its ensemble.

While Ripley’s Nostromo crewmates and the marines from Aliens were every bit as expendable as those in on the Covenant, they at least resonated as characters with inherent sympathetic qualities, making their inevitable demise hit that much harder. Lurching from one ill-conceived choice to the next, much of Covenant’s cast struggle to make any significant impact on the plot, leaving us very little space or reason to become emotionally invested in them.

Of the cast’s biggest disappointments, Billy Crudup’s Oram is so insufferably wet and overly-pious that it genuinely hurts to see an actor of his talent being dealt such a duff hand. The remainder of the crew are all various shades of grey and entirely forgettable but, shining through the fog of mediocrity, both Katherine Waterston and Michael Fassbender wrestle back a little respect for the film with performances that bely the shoddy material they’re given.

Waterston excels as the film’s lead role and, while comparisons to Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley are almost inevitable, she succeeds in fending off accusations of mimicry with a performance of power, pathos, and heroism that feels distinctly her own. Sharing the film’s dwindling limelight, Fassbender pulls in an impressive double-shift of malevolence and simmering pathos as both Covenant’s resident android Walter and the emotionally bereft David, the only surviving crew member from Prometheus. Fassbender’s cold, blank intensity is a merciful injection of gravitas and class in a film willing to settle for mediocrity and it’s through his spark, together with Waterston’s natural allure, that Alien: Covenant manages to scrape by with its dignity intact.

Some may question the necessity (and/or sanity) of Ridley Scott continuing to fly the flag for an Alien saga that appears way past its prime, but he clearly sees a well of as-yet untapped potential in the franchise that’s hard to argue with. In reaching for the reset button, Scott has done a solid job in returning to the basics that made the original films so successful, while adding a little depth to the Alien mythos by building on the themes that Prometheus established. However, while this nostalgic, safety-first tactic appears understandable considering the circumstances; it all feels rather uninspired. While some nostalgic thrills are to be had in this regressive approach, the film is hampered by chronic predictability and a plot as expendable as its forgettable characters. With the xenomorphs now reintroduced and a steady, if unspectacular, foundation laid; the franchise’s next move is a crucial one if it’s to avoid crashing and burning once again. Your move, Ridley.