Film review – Alien: Covenant (‘You know what? We should all split up…’)

Can you take a franchise too far? Police Academy says you can, which is why I’m always  a tad apprehensive before I take my seat for another Alien instalment. On the whole it’s been a good run: one or two classics, the occasional ‘meh’, and only one real stinker. But there is a formula for the best ones:

  1. More than one killer xenomorph.
  2. Lots of people with lots of guns, but no clue…
  3. An android with an agenda to make things just that much harder.
  4. No more than three survivors at the end.

So on that basis, Alien: Covenant is something of a winner.

covenant

The Covenant in question is a huge ship carrying two thousand people, in suspended animation, to a far-off world ripe for colonisation. Unsurprisingly, the ship suffers a disaster en-route (and the rather gruesome death of its captain), so the jaded crew decided to investigate a much closer world, looking to cut seven years off the journey time. The right climate, water and vegetation. It seems perfect; but of course, it’s not…

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Film review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (The Baby Groot Show)

guardians_of_the_galaxy_2.jpgYou  know what it’s like. Marvel Comics hands you one of the their B-teams and tells you to go make a movie. It’s a surprise smash, and now they want a sequel…

This is often where the trouble starts, and that’s why I can count on one hand the number of sequels that are better than the original. Fortunately, the director of Guardians of the Galaxy didn’t get a god complex and jet off on a wild tangent to find his artistic centre; nope, he looked carefully at what made his first outing such a huge success and then delivered exactly the same … only more so.

 

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