Reviews

I'm no Star Wars fan, just a general audience for that franchise, i really didn't like Force Awakens and Rogue One, i found them either slow, boring or aimed more for young children. I haven't watched Last Jedi yet but SOLO is the best of the bunch so far.

It's a nicely paced film which kept it entertaining.

Han Solo, Chewy, Woody Harrelson's Beckett, Thandie Newton's Val and Rio Durant stood out, were good fun to watch and they all carried the film really well.

SOLO is a very simple origin story, don't go in expecting depth because it's all on the surface.

I was enjoying the tone, characters, performances, action and pace of the film up until Lando Calrissian, L-3 and Han's girlfriend Qi'ra started getting more of the screen-time, pushing Woody Harrelson's cool, serious but funny Beckett into the sidelines which was a mistake! Even Han Solo took a back seat for a few minutes to accentuate Lando and L-3. That pair ruined the cool tone of the film that was established by all the previous characters.

Lando felt like his coolness was forced and ended up cringey. He even gets an introduction of how cool he's meant to be by Qi'ra, it was embarrassing and unnecessary.

L-3 felt like she belonged in a kids film and was annoyingly so out of place in this.

Emilia Clarke as Qi'ra, very unconvincing performance and cringey also.

I was shocked by the performance of the marauder character called Enfys Nest, OH WOW, i don't think i've ever seen such an amateur/emotionless performance by anyone in such a blockbuster before, it was like they'd just dragged someone off the street with no interest in acting and it showed!

Those four actors/characters really took me out of what was a decently toned film when they appeared. It would have been better if they had kept Thandie Newton's Val and Rio Durant throughout the film, instead of shoehorning Lando, L-3 and Qi'ra into the team/mission. Val and Rio had chemistry with the main cast and felt like they belonged in this world.

TBH even if they switched those characters it would still only get 7/10 max anyway(which is actually pretty good) because as an overall film it wasn't stretched to its full potential story wise.

Not really a film you need to watch at the cinema..unless you're a Star Wars fan that has enjoyed the past 3 movies!

I'll get this out of the way first, i really enjoyed 1979's Alien and loved 1986's Aliens but i very much disliked Ridley Scott's sleep inducing 2012 film Prometheus!

A couple of friends that loved Prometheus(ALARM BELLS) had assured me that this was nothing like that previous disaster. I also watched a fantastic documentary this week called Jodorowsky's Dune, about the making of a sci-fi movie called Dune that got cancelled by a nervous studio roughly a month before going into production in the mid 1970's. The script, storyboards, concept art, soundtrack collaborators and actors were all ready to go, on what seems like the most important project in Hollywood and film history, a real game changer! The visionary genius of Alejandro Jodorowsky assembled a team that was very against the typical Hollywood system of doing things and selected an bunch of leftfield creative artists to fulfil his vision for his sci-fi epic. I'm telling you this as it is HUGELY important to the Alien franchise and to science fiction cinema since. People should know that the reason Alien looks and feels the way it does is solely because of Jodorowsky's Dune project and so should be more commonly known and acknowledged. The team he put together, the storyboards and concept art that were created for Dune is basically what Alien, Blade Runner, Star Wars became. The studios were equally dazzled and scared about what Jodoowsky wanted to do with Dune and after it got cancelled the same studios hired HIS team to basically re- create(copy) what they had done with Dune for Alien and Blade Runner! Imagine if you will Alien and Blade Runner without that particular distinctive look and feel, it would have just looked and felt like any other 70s and early 80s sci-fi film and would possibly be forgotten like many of them now too.

So what did i think of Alien Covenant...i thought WHAT a waste of time! We have basically been given the exact same film as Alien and Prometheus, absolutely nothing new or fresh, same story, same structure. Spaceship full of crew, they wake up, land on a strange planet, aliens kill or infect a few on the land, then a few on the ship and that's it, the end! If you want to see that then just watch the 1979 Alien again! Roughly the first hour of Alien Covenant was pretty low key, giving you a chance to drift off and think about what to eat once you leave the cinema or whatever pops into your head. From then it shifts a gear away from that plodding Prometheus style(that film NEVER shifted from neutral unfortunately) but just wasn't enough and felt lifeless. One slightly exciting action sequence that shifted it into 2nd gear lasted about 5 minutes and really didn't warrant the effort of putting the clutch down, in the whole scheme of things! The film was predictable because you've seen this whole scenario before and in a million other similar type films. I started checking my phone halfway through to see how long i had left to endure of this which isn't good. Someone had told me the visuals in Alien Covenant were amazing and to be witnessed at the cinema, absolutely NOT True, there was nothing you haven't seen before with many big budget movies of the last 20 so years. The film was not scary as some have said and what action it did have was not inventive and definitely not worth a trip to cinema for. What we have with Alien Covenant is exactly the same story, structure and look as Ridley Scott's previous 2 Alien films. After the public polarization of Prometheus I expected him to tread new ground with this movie, especially because he acknowledged THAT issue and said changes will be made with this instalment. The only change made was upping the tempo, which still doesn't warrant watching it or it even being made. It felt like a poor attempt at a slasher film with even worse character development, a very shallow and forgettable crew. If i had to score it i'd give Alien Covenant a 1 out of 10, which is 1 more than what i gave Prometheus as it's basically a copy and paste job. It felt like a poor attempt at a slasher film. I would therefore recommend waiting to see this at home, hopefully for free if you are an Alien fan but if you're not then never bother, or just watch the original 1979 Alien and it's amazing 1986 action packed sequel directed by James Cameron, Aliens.

Ridley Scott should have stuck to his no-sequels policy because unfortunately he has done a MASSIVE smoking alien turd on his original 1979 film with Prometheus and now Alien Covenant. Leave the Alien franchise alone dude, it was doing much better without you. His last 4 films were equally bad or worse, besides Exodus which i enjoyed, so along with a bunch of his previous poor films it has led me to the conclusion that he was just at the right place at the right time with the 1979 Alien film. It was clearly the creative art department that the studio hired that truly made that film the visionary classic it became, along with Blade Runner, which btw also polarized its audience like Prometheus did with its storytelling, but was an undisputed classic in regards to its vision which we should all thank Alejandro Jodorowsky for! I would have preferred it if Ridley Scott had used the time spent making these 2 new Alien instalments making 2 original films instead. I'd rather have had a fresh take on another subject than 2 near identical re-runs of his first film!

Neill Blomkamp..HEEEEEELP!!