Alien Covenant is the great grandson of Alien (1977). It looks and sounds like the original and yet it’s stuck with that likeness due to fans yelling for it and also falls flat trying something on a more intellectual level which the director wants to do. I sat with a list being crossed off in my mind. She’s Ripley, he can’t be trusted, he’s a goner, she’s a goner, music from other movie, it’s behind you…and so on. It just seemed to have banter after banter at the start as if this was building towards the climax and yet the climax never really came. Well, it came but it was by the numbers and basically a retread. It all happened in front of my eyes and yet I was unmoved. 

I would recommend just watching the first two again and leaving it at that. 

The acting is all fait enough and it does look like the exact same world as the original, just without anything it care about. 

The alien itself is such a tired image now that even a young audience who hasn’t seen most of them would point and say “that bursts out if chests, that hugs faces and that has a mouth inside its mouth and is a man dressed up”. 

I’d say a 4 out of 10.