Alien: Covenant

"The path to paradise begins in hell."

2017 2h 2m EN

😐

6.2

MID

★6.2TMDB · 9,733

HorrorScience Fiction

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

The crew of the colony ship Covenant, bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise but is actually a dark, dangerous world.

“The path to paradise begins in hell.”

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Cast

Michael Fassbender
David / Walter
Katherine Waterston
Daniels
Billy Crudup
Oram
Danny McBride
Tennessee
Demián Bichir
Lope
Carmen Ejogo
Karine
Jussie Smollett
Ricks
Callie Hernandez
Upworth

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: Dante Harper, Michael Green, Jack Paglen
Languages: English, German
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Mid-budget at $97M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 9 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, German.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Prometheus Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

CAST

Did you know

362+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Ridley Scott, shot by Dariusz Wolski. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Jed Kurzel. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Pietro Scalia shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Ridley Scott directs. Dariusz Wolski behind the camera. Jed Kurzel scores. Pietro Scalia cuts. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English, German.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Mid-budget at $97M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.
2Released 9 years ago.
3Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, German.
4Part of the "Prometheus Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
5362+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
6Directed by Ridley Scott, shot by Dariusz Wolski. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
7Original score by Jed Kurzel. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
8Editor Pietro Scalia shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
9Michael Fassbender and Katherine Waterston and Billy Crudup carry the top of the cast.
10Marketing tagline: "The path to paradise begins in hell.".
11IMDB entry: tt2316204 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
12Classified under 21 themes, including "android", "spacecraft", "experiment", "space travel".
13Released under 19 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Dariusz Wolski
Original score: Jed Kurzel
Editing: Pietro Scalia
Production design: Chris Seagers
Costume design: Janty Yates
Makeup / hair: Rebecca Allen
VFX supervisor: Charley Henley
Sound: Oliver Tarney
Stunt coordinator: Kyle Gardiner
Runtime: 122 min · 2h 2m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $97,000,000
Box office: $240,891,763
Return: 248% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Alien: Covenant (2017)

Part of

Prometheus Collection

In 2012, the science-fiction/horror film Prometheus brought Ridley Scott back to the film franchise he launched in 1979 with Alien. Prometheus Collection movies offer a sort of back door into the original Alien film, answer questions about where the series’ terrifying monster came from.

Also by

Ridley Scott

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Simon Foster2017-05-07
"At times a thrilling, stomach-churning journey, but one that leaves those on board wondering if the disorientation and down time was worth the investment..." Read the full review here: http://screen-space.squarespace.com/reviews/2017/5/8/alien-covenant.html
CraigJamesReview2017-05-12
Alien Covenant marks the third Alien movie directed by Ridley Scott and the second prequel to the franchise after Prometheus. They also seem to be getting worse with age. Prometheus was really a lot of questions searching for answers, ambitious in asking not only about the creation of alien life, but human life as well. However the plan to stretch out these topics into 3 or 4 movies should be met with some skepticism. Especially considering the basis for this was started by Damon Lindeloff, the creator of Lost and the man most of us are still waiting for answers for most of the things that happened on Lost. He of course has abandoned this second movie, leaving it in the hands of the far more capable John Logan, but even he struggles to find meaning here, or escape the clichés that have started to grow like a Xenomorph in John Hurt's stomach. We're dealing with a whole new crew this time; the Covenant. They are headed on a colonial mission to another planet before an electric shock takes out the ship, the Captain, and 47 other members. Reluctant to get back into their pods for a 7 year journey, the on board crew responsible for the ship's upkeep decide instead to answer a distress transmission coming from another planet. That's where they find what continues to be the best character in these prequels; Michael Fassbender's David the Android. His motivations and whether he considers himself human or God is constantly in question and Fassbender's soft-spoken performance continues to haunt. I also really do consider Prometheus to be one of the most gorgeous-looking special films of the last decade and this continues that- from the Covenant ship to the grain fields and other vegetation eerily covering the mostly desolate other terrain of the planet. We also get the first look at the Neo-morph, who is born the same way, seems a bit faster than the Xeno-morph but the main differences are it doesn't have the Venus fly trap tongue and it can stand like a human. Pretty cool. Just it's at this point I should probably say that after Aliens there started to be less reason to want these. Alien 3 was fine, Prometheus I thought could really go either way depending on the sequels, and Alien 4 of course was garbage. The biggest problem here is that it feels so redundant. We get a distress call, the crew investigates, some background characters do stupid things leading to impregnation, someone says "we never should have come", final alien chase. The aliens, when you can see them, are cool, but there is a lot of downtime between them, and a few quality kills does not a 200 million dollar mega blockbuster make. It's also really odd that Prometheus does this whole thing of setting up the engineers as the creators of human beings but here they only get one scene and let's just say those looking for more info about them will get angry. The promise of some larger conversation is in here somewhere but these movies feel so stretched out at this point that when this does get to the few moments of actually having something to say, it's hard to get re-engaged. The characters don't help either as most just come off like archetypes. Katherine Waterston is the Captain's widow and really the bargain basement Ellen Ripley here. Billy Crudup plays the faith-based character, and like the last movie, this movie seems to be including that without ever really giving it value in the meaning of life conversation. But at least those two have some background. I'm so tired of most of these others. The ones who just go tramping through the woods of an unknown planet or show the decision making skills of the Trump administration. You're not supposed to make us root for the alien, guys. Finally i'm no closer to understanding why these movies are necessary. It's easy to tell what this movie wants to do and it's even easier to see the twist coming a half hour before it even comes. There are a few nice kills here, I will give the movie that. If you can remember to wake yourself every time Fassbender and Fassbender (he also plays an android named Walter) have a philosophy conversation, you might find some interesting stuff there too. But overall not enough action or thought to make this overly drawn out series seem necessary. So I go 5/10. For more reviews, check me out on Youtube here- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY_IvAm1bJADConJhDCuq6A
Gimly2017-05-13
★ 4/10
I had a few reservations going in to Alien: Covenant. In my opinion there hasn't been a truly great entry to the franchise since Aliens, so I was worried that the statistics were against it. I thought Prometheus was incredible from a technical standpoint, but not a very engaging movie, and I was worried we might get the same here. The trailers had been mostly good but I was worried I had seen too much of the third act in them, and I was worried this would spoil the experience for me a little. What I was not worried about was within ten minutes of the damn thing starting I would think to myself: "Wow, this movie is really poorly made." Well I guess I'm an idiot because that is exactly what happened. And that feeling never entirely abated over the course of the whole thing. Don't get me wrong, it's no "AVP: Requiem", but I was still very disappointed. Final rating:★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product.