Yes Sir Ridley Scott really sunk the alien franchise with this one. Some say this sequel to Prometheus is a return to basics horror flick, but honestly the only thing truly brought back was the familiar chilling set of climbing monotones previously scored by composer Jerry Goldsmith in the 1979 original. Then again a creepy, isolationist music overlay can't quite save the laughably ridiculous story line, where the Martian director once again seeks to enlarge his story arc of engineers and synthetic droids, at the same time interweaving their existence with the ill-fated crew of the Covenant vessel.

The plot tries to imitate the very first alien movie in certain ways: crew finds rogue planet, touches down and explores, a few folks are unwittingly afflicted by alien spores, team gets stranded on planet and all hell breaks loose. A smooth, white translucent predecessor to the Xenomorph aka the neomorph is introduced in probably the most creative of deaths, which happen early on in the film when the creature ruptures from the back of a convulsing infected male. After that, its all face-huggers, eggs, weapons free and senseless carnage without any genuine effort introduced to steep and peel away the tension in a proper build-up of things. People die ever so often throughout the movie's 2 hour run, and the audience hardly commiserates.

Scott's obsession with the synthetics is redundantly perplexing, especially so when it seems he feels obligated to explain the genesis of the alien species as the sole outcome of a curious, unsympathetic Weyland Corp manufactured droid's experimentation. On the other hand, his attempt at playing the heroine card is ambivalent at best, where an Ellen Ripley clone in the form of Daniels (played by Catherine Watson) fights to keep her mates alive, only to be consistently fooled by the dramatics of one "good turned evil" David (from the first film Prometheus) and eventually succumbing to his sleight of hand. When the intended twist can be sniffed from a mile away, ensuing disinterest washes away all desire to root for a particular manner of culmination.

Even reciting Percy Shelly's sonnet Ozymandias can't save this piece of hogwash .

Rating By Blue Blooded Specimen: 5/10