Alien Covenant (2017)

Ridley Scott’s follow-up to Prometheus (the second in the Alien prequel saga) is an all-out space-action-horror affair. Michael Fassbender returns to the role of the creepy-genius droid David, but this time the same actor also plays a second, superficially similar droid with different programming.

A quick outline of the premise from Wikipedia: “In 2104, ten years after the Prometheus expedition, the colonization ship Covenant is seven years from reaching planet Origae-6, with 2,000 colonists in stasis and 1,140 human embryos in cold storage. The ship is monitored by Walter, an advanced android model that physically resembles David. When a shockwave damages the ship, Walter reanimates his 14 human crewmates, themselves couples/colonists. Ship's captain Jake Branson dies when his stasis pod malfunctions. While repairing the ship, the crew picks up a transmission of a human voice from a nearby planet, which appears eminently more habitable than Origae-6.”

The crew detour to the appealingly Earth-like planet, which, inevitably, is too good to be true. Before long, everything kicks off. As with Prometheus, the characters take stupid risks by walking around alone and with nothing to protect them. You just know someone is doomed when they wander off saying they will be back in a minute...

But the thrills are considerable. There are some remarkable scenes, such as an attempted take-off of the survivors’ rescue ship with the alien and the heroine Janet Daniels (Katherine Waterston) both clinging on to it. It’s like an action set-piece from a James Bond film, but set on another world and with monsters. The chase scenes in the Covenant corridors are also highly effective, but it lacks the haunting suspense and claustrophobia of the original Alien and is far less scary as a result.

The same themes about God, creation and the meaning of life are explored, but it’s tighter all round than Prometheus. It’s also more ambitious and convincing psychologically. Ridley Scott manages to have his cake and eat it, constructing a philosophical puzzler that simultaneously works as a guns ’n’ gore thriller.

Prometheus (2012)


Ridley Scott’s prequel to his Alien series is a philosophical sci-fi/horror hybrid. It looked beautiful at the cinema – the storm rolling in across an alien landscape was terrifying – but far less so on DVD. My favourite effect is when the investigators throw mapping hover-balls into the alien chambers and the laser/sonar-type scanning technology relays an instant 3D-hologram model of the caves back to the computers aboard the spaceship. Impressive. Plus, the hi-tech “self-surgery” scene is pretty harrowing.

There are some slightly baffling plot elements – why did old man Weyland of the Weyland Corporation have to hide on the mission he himself funded? – possibly to be clarified in subsequent instalments of the series. The film asks some Big Questions. Who are we? Why are we here? What is life? Is a creator the same thing as a god? Can we explain ourselves with science or do we still need religion?

Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender are tremendous in the lead roles. It’s a nice touch that the latter’s character models himself on Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, which he watches while acting as caretaker on the long voyage of the Prometheus.

Guy Pearce is much less convincing as a decrepit old man. Why not simply use an elderly actor? The worst aspect is the bit-part characters, crew members Millburn and Fifield, who are so badly drawn and one-dimensional that you know from the very beginning they will have to meet a horrible, untimely death. This is a weakness of so many films that you would have thought Ridley Scott would have been able to avoid such a standard pitfall. Imagine how much more powerful the story would be if those minor characters convinced you they were real enough to make you care.

Another thing that simply doesn’t work is the lack of precaution the scientists take. They remove their helmets while investigating alien lifeforms, gleefully unconcerned that they may be exposing themselves to something very nasty indeed. Maybe that adds drama but it also makes the plot less convincing, and anything that makes you question the credibility of what you are watching erodes some of the magic.

And finally, maybe I missed something, but if the aliens seeded life on Earth in the first place (as the archaeologists’ discovery of cave paintings seemed to suggest), why did they want to return with their sticky black goo as a toxic weapon? Or will that all be explained in Alien Covenant?

Overall, it’s engaging without being satisfying.

Troy (2004)

Epic retelling of Homer’s Iliad. It’s Troy (Turkey) in the 13th or 12th century BC, when men will fight for honour, for king, for country – and for a beautiful woman. Brad Pitt plays beefy Achilles, an almost superhero-type warrior with an appropriately one-dimensional personality – he’s a mythological archetype, not a soap opera character. Orlando Bloom is weedy and ineffectual as Prince Paris, who unwisely stole Helen of Troy (Diane Kruger) from King Menelaus of Sparta (Brendan Gleeson). Eric Bana is credible as Paris’s loyal brother, the sensitive Prince Hector. And Peter O’Toole has a certain gravity as the brothers’ elderly father, King Priam. Meanwhile, Sean Bean is his usual Sean Beany self as Odysseus.

As a “sword and sandals” blockbuster, it’s effective in an unsubtle way. There are a lot of sweaty biceps – almost fetishistically displayed – and the huge battle scenes are impressive, even if they are computer-generated. In terms of the acting, it’s performed in a “high style” that’s often ridiculous but which somehow works. Again, it’s not subtle.

The famous Trojan Horse is relatively underplayed in the plot, which I liked. Also, it seemed more real because it was clearly a load of old wooden planks taken from their ships and hurriedly bashed together, rather than the finely crafted “horse” shape you often see in illustrations of the tale.

So is the film any good? I’m not entirely sure. But the source material – the decade-long Trojan War of Greek mythology – is rich and resonant enough that the story cannot really fail.

Working Girl (1988)

Intelligent and amusing Wall Street comedy-drama about a working-class stockbroker's secretary who dreams big. Like so many American films of this time, it is obsessed with social status and upward mobility. In many ways it’s a more sophisticated version of The Secret of My Success. Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford are tremendous in the lead roles, really seeming to relish their parts. The script is nuanced enough that even the villain (Weaver) is likeable. It’s wonderfully 1980s – the hairspray, the shoulder pads, the pop soundtrack (Chris De Burgh’s "Lady in Red", the Pointer Sisters’ "I’m So Excited"), the New York scenes – but it has dated well because it taps into timeless themes of class, aspiration and identity. And while there are farcical elements, it resists cheap laughs and never descends into mere slapstick. The pacing is perfect, too: it builds and twists at just the right speed to keep you engaged.

In addition to the big trio of lead actors, there’s an all-star cast also featuring Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, Kevin Spacey and Olympia Dukakis. There are even brief appearances by David Duchovny and Ricki Lake. The theme song is the rousing but horribly overproduced "Let the River Run" by Carly Simon.

The Martian (2015)

A sci-fi disaster/survival masterpiece based on Andy Weir's gripping 2011 novel. This is an incredible film – dramatic and terrifying, but also surprisingly funny and moving. 

Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is stranded alone on Mars when a vicious storm forces his mission to be aborted and the rest of the crew have to abandon him in their escape. Much of the story details Watney’s attempts to stay alive on the planet by drawing on his resourcefulness and extraordinary positivity. He manages to extend his survival time by farming potatoes. Another major thread covers the NASA rescue plans being debated and prepared on Earth. Meanwhile, the original mission crew (with Jessica Chastain as the commander) are in transit back home when the opportunity to turn around and save Watney becomes a possibility...

There’s so much that’s great about The Martian:

• It looks amazing, like most of Ridley Scott's work. Those vast, red Martian landscapes are striking and seem incredibly real. 

• The music is perfectly chosen (Watney is stranded with a load of disco classics) and is expertly matched to various scenes. The collage segments set to David Bowie’s "Starman" and Abba’s "Waterloo" are among the absolute highlights of the film. 

• The casting is excellent: Sean Bean, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kristen Wiig are all ideal in their parts. Every character counts, and so does every line of dialogue.

• The drama is perfectly paced, building to an unbearable tension in the final moments. But despite that I found myself smiling or laughing for quite a lot of the 141-minute running time. 

One other thought: it's interesting that so many of the best films of the past few years – Arrival, Gravity, Moon, Passengers and this one – have all been sci-fi.

Revolutionary Road (2008)

This faithful adaptation of the 1961 novel by Richard Yates is a fairly bleak study of oppressive suburban conformity in 1950s America, and the perils of trying to dream your way outside of it. The Wheelers are played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, who famously played the couple in Titanic. (Kathy Bates is also in both films.) In fact, it almost works as Titanic II, extrapolating how their lives might have evolved had Jack lived, married Rose and settled down to have a family. Suburban malaise is expertly depicted, with a sense of desperation and emptiness always at the edges of their wealthy, comfortable existence. From the outside, they are “special” – the “perfect couple” – but the rigid gender roles and social expectations of their time and place form an invisible prison they both rage against in different ways. Ultimately the unrelenting hopelessness of it all does become a bit overwhelming, even though that hopelessness is extremely well imagined.