The COARD: Alien: Covenant

Week 3 brings us into the depths of our collective greatest fear. Namely, being killed in the most painful and gruesome way possible as a terrifying monster eats you alive. Or makes you a brief incubator for its disgusting spawn and you die a very painful death by being eaten alive, but from the inside as the creature creates an exit through your chest cavity. Either way, I don't see a long line of people signing up for such a fate. There is a long line, however, of people willing to see this movie. The COARD is definitely on that list. Details of this movie will be discussed. If that bothers you, stop at the appropriate point. But you'll be missing out. All the good stuff will be unraveled in the spoiler section. Good luck and God speed.

The Xenomorph in all of its pants ruining glory

Roy: You should all know something about me. I love the Alien franchise. Which is odd because I was kept from it most of my life. If you ask my father, he will tell you about the time he went to see Ridley Scott's 1979 original, Alien, with his sister and he vowed he would never watch that or any sequel ever again. He can't be blamed. I just re-watched the original last night and if you saw it in 1979, leaving the theater with a clean pair of shorts would have been nothing short of a miracle. If this sounds familiar it's because Cody and I have covered this ground before. Alien: Covenant is one of the prequels to the four movies that make up the Alien franchise. I say one of the prequels because Ridley Scott has big plans. As previously stated I'm biased when it comes to these films. So it shouldn't surprise you to find out that I loved it. There was so much to enjoy about this movie. Ridley Scott is one of my favorites and is on the short list of directors that I will see anything they do. From Blade Runner to Gladiator to The Martian, he has easily made some of the most enjoyable movies that I can think of. He poured all of his considerable talents into Alien: Covenant and has come out on the other side with a beautiful film. The best word I can use to describe this movie is "unsettling." Scott had every intention of making us squirm for the two hours he held us captive. Not just from the Xenomorph that finally gets some screen time after the brilliant foundational tease that was Prometheus, but from the rest of the cast as well. This film makes you uncomfortable. It's in every facet of the picture; the setting, the cast, the story, the horrors that you uncover. It could be argued that the scariest moments of this movie occur when the Xenomorph is off screen. For this Scott shares credit with the amazing Michael Fassbender, who........ I suppose I should let Cody talk now. But only if he promises not to hate all over this movie by pooping in my ice cream.

Cody: I can't imagine a world in which one poops in the ice cream of a passionate Ridley Scott monologue. I'm not as high on this movie as Roy, but there's no possibility of pretending to take a contradictory tone. I may not be a fanboy, but I'm also not an idiot. The movie was good. There's no denying it. Ridley Scott's range of viewer delight goes from "that was decent" to "holy @#$% ." This lands squarely in the middle of those two poles. What takes it from decent to truly good is the seemingly always improving Michael Fassbender. The rest of the cast could have been played by Jeff Dunham's puppets and Fassbender would have carried them into something resembling a good movie. I didn't even know who this guy was until he played Magneto in X-Men: First Class. That was only six years ago. Two years prior he was allowed to flash his serious chops while playing Lt. Archie Hicox in Inglorious Basterds, but the name recognition didn't occur for me until Magneto, because duh, you don't forget Magneto. Before that, his only role in a film that I've really heard of was like the seventh most important character in 300. After First Class, he's starred in at least one major film every year, but I really don't understand what took so long. He is killing it and has quickly ascended to a firm spot on the list of actors who I would go to the theater to see in anything. That's not a long list of people, because these coveted spots are not for life. A series of bad choices might land you in the "only if I hear good things" zone *cough Will Smith cough*, But Fassbender? He was amazing in Alien: Covenant, and you better believe I'll be seeing The Snowman in the fall. I'm going to see a movie that includes the phrase, "ominous-looking snowman" in its story description. That's when you know an actor has ensnared my attention.

Roy: I'm already all in on The Snowman by the way. Cody and I may have been the only two men in the world who both went to and enjoyed The Light Between Oceans. The real life couple of Fassbender and Vikander produced a gut wrenching film that was a beautiful thing to behold. As good as she was in that, Fassbender matched her intensity the entire time. So it is no surprise that he continues to astonish us with his talent. He reprises his role as the android David and does so to chilling effect. While watching him it's easy to forget that he's a real person in front of a camera and instead become transfixed by his performance as an android. It's in the way he moves, the way he speaks. Ridley Scott sets the tone in this film with a heavy dose of dread. Things begin to go wrong immediately, which isn't a spoiler unless you've literally never seen any of these movies. If that's the case, you're not starting with Covenant. Beyond the dread that bubbles up from the story, it's how he films this movie. He gives the actors room to convey and carry the emotion of the film. He doesn't try to make the scenery a character, everything in this film points to the actors. The fact that it was cast so well adds to the strength of the movie. Billy Crudup can always bring home an excellent performance and Katherine Waterston shines in a role where she has no magic wand this time to help her out of sticky situations. Even Danny McBride shows up and does well. Which was a little surprising. I don't think I'm alone in finding it difficult to take him seriously any time I see him. He has crafted quite the career playing the buffoon and typically does that really well. In Covenant, he shows that he too has some range. It was a nice change of pace.

Danny McBride in Pineapple Express,
one of his many interchangeable roles

Cody: Danny McBride was my biggest concern coming into this, actually. There are few actors who I would be less likely to take seriously. He was used exactly the right way in Covenant, though. Yes, he was serious, but he also wore a cowboy hat, sang Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver, and provided other moments of minor comic relief. I say minor because, well, people were frequently being eaten. It's more of a nervous chuckle than a full belly laugh, but even a forced chuckle is a welcome reprieve from the constant sense of foreboding that surrounds this movie. So in a roundabout way, I suppose I'm happy Kenny Powers joined the crew for this one. Is everyone else ready to discuss the gruesome ways in which some characters met their untimely end? Strap up, people.

Spoilers will now commence. Turn away if you have a weak stomach or plan on seeing this movie and just haven't gotten around to it yet. You want to go into this one fresh and wondering what the crap is going on. 

Roy: I apologize if you've already grown tired of the Fassbender love. It's not going to slow down here... When Prometheus ended I wasn't sure what to think of David the android. Yes, he poisoned Dr. Holloway and was largely at fault for everything in that movie going to hell in a hand-basket. However, it was unclear if he was following orders from his sinister boss Peter Weyland who was willing to trade anything for extended life. When an Engineer brained Weyland and David was free of that entanglement would he show a gentler side? We just didn't know. Even if you did not trust David at the end of Prometheus, there was no way to know what was coming from this character in Covenant. David was obsessed with creation. To find out that he tinkered with the Xenovirus (black goo) until he created the perfection that is the Xenomorph blew my mind. It wasn't just finding out that David was the creator as opposed to the Engineers. It was the horrors that he was willing to commit in order to reach his goal. After the events of Prometheus unfolded, Dr. Shaw took care of David, re-installed his head and trusted him. In one of the more gruesome moments of the film, we are shown how she is repaid for such kindness. Used as an experiment for David to perfect his horrible creation. The Alien franchise is no stranger to human villains. The Weyland corporation has always been more interested in studying the Xenomorph than stopping it. But for the first time in six films the largest monster on the screen was not the nightmare inducing Xenomorph. It was something far more terrifying. An andriod. One designed to be attractive and as close to human as possible. It was obvious from the opening scene of the film that from his moment of creation David was aware of what he was. In addition to his self-awareness David believed he was better than his creator. That opening scene was excellent foreshadowing for later when David revealed himself to be the worst sentient being in the entire universe.... Like, all of it. The whole thing.

Cody: Well somebody has a lot of free time on their hands. The sum of all my knowledge of Alien backstories: Sigourney Weaver. So when I saw Michael Fassbender in the opening scene of Covenant, I grabbed another handful of popcorn and thought, "huh, guess I forgot he played an android in Prometheus." Roy's over here diving into subplots of subplots with a fervor usually reserved for only the craziest Game of Thrones enthusiasts. Clearly, I wasn't waiting with bated breath to see what would become of the original Fassbender android. I was mostly just excited for the one actor, two characters, and the same screen shtick that I have never failed to be impressed by since first seeing it in something like 1997. I have to agree with Roy on one thing, though, Evil Fassbender (aka David) was the scariest part of this movie. The cool, calculated way in which he committed such horrible deeds was what made it particularly unnerving. He also provided us with an absolute gem in the classic horror cliche: the "NO, don't go there." routine. When he lured Billy Crudup into the alien nest, I'm pretty sure I heard someone in my theater say, "don't look inside the egg, you idiot." Okay, fine. Maybe by "someone" I mean me. And by "say" I mean yelled at the screen. Whatever, you weren't there. It was scary. I didn't want a Xenobaby to suction cup the captain's face. Freaking Evil Fassbender. What a jerk.

The final moments of an idiot

Roy: The last scene I have to mention is when Fassbender had double duty and was playing the same model of two different androids. One good, one evil. Walter was the android on the Covenant. An upgraded model who was less human because the David model was found to be unsettling for those he was around, which isn't surprising if you've been following along. David instantly found a brother he believed would stand with him. In a scene with a homemade flute, David showed Walter how he cold learn to create. It was super seductive and playing on the edges of homoeroticism without ever landing squarely in that territory. It was a perfect scene that just added to the giant unnerving sandwich that was this entire movie. We have two more films in this series before we find out how the Engineer ship crash landed on LV-426 that sent poor Ellen Ripley down her terrifyingly dark path. So it wasn't a surprise that David ended up winning as the film closed. Which just added to my excitement for the next installment.

Cody: I can't even blame you for closing with another Fassbender reference. It's what we all wanted. I could touch on some of the more predictable aspects of the film, such as David successfully swapping places with Walter, but it's a horror film. It being predictable was, well, predictable. I'm going to leave you all with something a bit more...unexpected. Sorry, I had to. James Franco. I've heard of actors being in everything (See: Jackson, Samuel L.). I've never seen anything like James Franco. He has seventeen credits in 2017, following up ten from 2016. I don't understand how it even happens. Is he on speed dial for every producer in Hollywood? Or is he calling each Hollywood producer every other day to see if they could use a cameo from a well known face? How many producers have blocked Franco's number after hundreds of pleading calls? I don't ask for much; I just want to ask Franco why he is so willing to take his time to appear in so many roles. It's really a shame his character died. He could have been in thirty seconds of the next installment, then I might be just as excited as Roy.