Alien: Covenant

"The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their forefathers. Therefore, this is what Jehovah says, 'Here I am bringing on them a calamity that they will not be able to escape. When they call for help, I will not listen to them."

Alien: Covenant, the sixth (or eighth if you include the Alien vs. Predator movies) in this multi-decade science fiction/horror franchise, is a step in the right direction but one that sparks a debate as to whether or not director Ridley Scott and his team should continue making these movies. Scott, whose second film was Alien, a legendary science fiction film, returns here again as director. He left the series after directing the first one in 1979, allowing James Cameron to take over with Aliens in 1986. Others followed, far less successfully than Scott and Cameron. The series was rebooted, sort of, in 2012 with Prometheus with Scott returning as director. Scott and his writers put a cast of characters in the same universe as the malicious xenomorph aliens, but those creatures basically did not appear. Instead, we got a series of enigmas and interesting theories on the genesis of humans. Alien: Covenant is part Alien, part Prometheus, and while we get the familiar structure of scientists being picked off one by one, we also get, for better or worse, a further exploration of those large themes.

If you didn't watch the short prologue, you should. It will be a basic reminder of what happened in the previous film. In case you missed it, a quick reminder: The survivors of the Prometheus in 2093 (Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, played by Noomi Rapace, and the android David, played by Michael Fassbender) decide to go find the "engineers", the mysterious alien species that may have created humans (and incidentally tried to kill them).

More than ten years later, a crew of colonists aboard a ship called the Covenant is on a journey towards a new home planet far away from Earth. The ship is anchored by a newer android type named Walter (also played by Fassbender). Walter has a number of improvements from David, the most obvious being that he thinks less for himself. This is beneficial for a variety of reasons explained in the film. But the crew are awakened by a deadly neutrino burst. Picking up the pieces, they discover a distress signal not far off their path. Their captain (Billy Crudup) decides to lead the crew there (for some reason). The planet they find is so Earth-like that they apparently don't need helmets (more astronaut stupidity), and they explore an eerily quiet land. Ghoulish Pompeii-like casts of some kind of being are everywhere, as is danger, and it's all downhill from there.

Many seem annoyed that Scott has chosen the Alien franchise to explore these large concepts. I don't mind. Half-way through, not long after they land and things start going badly, the film switches fairly suddenly from an Alien movie to a Prometheus sequel, and while this probably will irritate most viewers (particularly those who didn't like Prometheus), from there the two are neatly tied together. The themes are there, for sure, and some of them quite obvious. "Covenant" is a religious term regarding the Biblical ark; here, just as the animals before them, the ship carries couples two by two to a new world. Some themes are a little less obvious. For instance, Walter points out that David has made a mistake in his quoting Ozymandias, and that the real author was Percy Shelly, who many believe co-authored Frankenstein with Mary Shelly. And the subtitle of Frankenstein is (wait for it)...The Modern Prometheus. Watch the film, see what kind of power David has and uses and wants to use, consider both Frankenstein and Ozymandias and the themes involved, and have more fun with the allegories.

But if you do want chest (and back) bursting, scenes of gore galore, and fright, Alien: Covenant delivers. It does not possess that prudence and tension employed in the first one, which was a much more contained and limited movie that ended up paying off beautifully. But still, this is a better looking movie than Prometheus, and one that is far less frustrating. The characters, though, are some of the least interesting in the series. The lead, Katherine Waterston, is not given much to do, and the other female actors (namely Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, and Callie Hernandez) scream a lot and heighten the film's tension, but that's about it. Crudup does provide a somewhat intriguing character as the ship's new captain, who is not truly suited for his unexpected assignment. His leadership skills are questionable, and he's learning on the job. Damian Bichir does a mostly good job as another crew member, but the one who is really remarkable is Danny McBride, who has made a successful career as a funnyman. Here he's all serious and is perhaps the most impressive addition.

And yet the most enjoyable to watch, yet again, is Michael Fassbender, a true treasure of cinema. Whereas Sigourney Weaver was the star of the first four films, here Fassbender is the driver of this part of the franchise. He gets the dual task of playing Walter and David, and of course they come face to face, brother to brother. The flute scene, which starts with David teaching Walter how to play a wooden flute, is remarkably tense and entertaining, dripping with homoerotic hints at incest. (David has one line in particular that is truly eyebrow-raising.) David sees himself as the king of kings, and while I think this franchise (along with many that are overstaying their welcome) is growing a bit dull, I also look forward to seeing if humans deteriorate because of his nefariousness.

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12 Years a Slave

To put it simply, "12 Years a Slave" is not an easy film to watch.  More specifically, it is as harrowing a motion picture as ever.  How else can it be put? Disturbing, horrifying, powerful--these are all appropriate adjectives. The point is that the film will essentially leave you speechless. The famous Roger Ebert quote that no good movie is depressing but all bad movies are depressing is not accurate here. This movie is very, very depressing, as depressing as it is exceptional. It is not an easy one to watch, but that's the way it should be.

Is it too violent? To say yes would be an insult not only to realism and history but also those who suffered and died from such terrible situations. Much criticism has been made these days about the level of violence and nudity in movies. That is another discussion for another time. But director Steve McQueen has wisely included a large amount here; not to do so would be unwise. Being stripped naked to show for potential customers is perhaps the most humiliating of acts. It is here that the movie first started to "get to me," which is odd, because by that point, roughly thirty minutes in, the audience has been shown several scenes of torture. But those scenes were expected. I did not expect to see a cruel slave seller played by Paul Giamatti demonstrate a young boy's strength by having him jump repeatedly before the boy is separated from his mother and sister. (Compare Giamatti's performance to that of the sweet driver he plays in "Saving Mr. Banks.") The scene is haunting. So too is the simplicity (aside from the practically Shakespearean dialogue) in a scene where a slave woman played by Alfre Woodard (terrific as always) discusses her strategy to use lust to avoid the whip. That strategy is not so successful for Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o), who becomes the victim of the worst violence imaginable.

Her master and also that of Solom Northup, the story's protagonist played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, is played by Michael Fassbender. I have seen Fassbender in a number of bad films, including the overrated "Shame," which is one of the two previous movies he has done with McQueen. (Fassbender has appeared in all three of McQueen's films; the other is "Hunger" from 2008.) But I have never seen him give a bad performance, and this is by far his best performance yet. From beginning to end, his portrayal is that of terrifying sadism. In a dumber version of the movie, Fassbender's Edwin Epps would be the "evil slave owner," waking his property in the middle of the night to dance, raping his slaves, whipping them until he has lost his energy. 

But Benedict Cumberbatch as William Ford would be the "good slave owner." Solomon describes Ford as a decent man, and there are scenes of actual kindness, like Ford giving Solomon a violin (Solomon was a professional violinist before he was kidnapped and thrown into slavery). But while it's discreet, the movie makes clear that there is no such thing as a good slave owner. Consider the fact that both Epps and Ford gather their slaves into the yard to listen to them read from the Bible. Epps reads a passage about obeying the Lord as one's master.  "That's scripture," he warns. In his book "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined," Steven Pinkner asks if the reader has ever noticed that "Thou shall not own slaves" is not a commandment. Neither is "Thou shall not rape," for that matter. The Bible doesn't condemn slavery; it condones it. And yet, to paraphrase Dan Savage, this is the document we are to heed, but it couldn't even get the simplest moral question correct. There is no such thing as a good slave owner.

This is a tale of a total deficit of empathy and compassion. The other major movies regarding the black American experience this year ("42" and "Lee Daniels' The Butler") are ultimately about success. "12 Years a Slave" is only about failure. It's true that there is a portion not necessarily about success and survival but about living. The primary motivation of Solomon is not to revenge, which he does only once, fighting back against a terribly vicious man played by Paul Dano. Instead, his motivation is to live, as he clearly states. I have not yet mentioned how magnificent Ejiofor is as Solomon Northup. It is one of the very best performances of the year and perhaps the decade. Of the elements of this film, particularly the direction from Steve McQueen, are incredible and worthy of their Oscar nominations.  It is truly one of the best films of the year.
      

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Prometheus

"Why should the thirst for knowledge be aroused only to be disappointed and punished...like a second Prometheus, I will endure this and worse..."
-Edwin Abbott Abbott

Ridley Scott's "Alien" is famously about a group of "truckers in space" who, out of contractual obligations, must investigate an unidentified object deep in space, where no one can hear you scream. Their ship becomes a haunted house, as a chest-bursting alien hunts them down. Here, in Scott's prequel "Prometheus," there is no economic reality but instead a thirst for knowledge and the reminder that curiosity kills. Its scientist, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), and her fellow scientist and lover Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) believe they have discovered an invitation from an alien species on a far away planet. These aren't simply aliens, but in fact some kind of scientific creators of human beings. Their project is funded by an aging Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), and their crew features a groovy yet hypothesis-providing captain (Idris Elba) and the supervisor of the operation, Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), a stern, by-the-book woman, as well as an android (Michael Fassbender), practically in control of everything.

I couldn't help but constantly compare this movie to "Alien," as I should have, and compared to "Alien" it disappoints. Some might argue that it would be unfair to compare the two, considering that living up to the legacy of "Alien" is too difficult a task. But many find James Cameron's "Aliens" to be superior to its predecessor, so the comparison is fair. Whereas "Alien" is one of the most visually stunning films of all time, "Prometheus" often is a mess, overboard in its computer generated imagery, looking like a cheap computer game and not utilizing its impressive sets enough. While "Alien" features one of the greatest casts in cinematic history, only Fassbender provides a comparable performance.

But is "Prometheus" a bad film? Not really. It has its moments and indeed gets better as it goes. It prefers, for better or (more often) for worse, to tackle bigger questions than the conventional horror approach of "Alien." Here in "Prometheus" there are questions on the origin of humans and end of times. Some have complained that there are too many questions left unanswered, but remember that one of the screenwriters is Damon Lindelof, a creator of and screenwriter for "Lost," a show famous/infamous for not revealing many answers. But the questions are unnecessary, as is the teasing of its audience as it hops from enigma to enigma. There are strange holograms. One of the crew members is poisoned. Another is somehow impregnated with some sort of alien; she figures out how to get a machine to perform a Cesarean surgery on her...the absurdities continue.

But as mentioned before, Fassbender is terrific in the film. His character is David, the film's android, and is impossible to ignore, simultaneously serving as an intelligence compass for the crew and yet having a cruel lack of emotion. The only times he does seem to emote are when he either is jealous that he's "not a real boy" or when his fierce loyalty to his master compromises the safety of others.  He playfully apologizes as he seemingly is aware that his actions are making the situations more dangerous. One can find obvious influences from "2001: A Spacey Odyssey," "Lawrence of Arabia" (which David studies), and one would imagine the previous "Alien" films, but Fassbender has stated that he avoided watching those. But other than this, there is not too much else to write about, and it unfortunately feels like a missed opportunity. There are talks of a sequel, but for better or worse, it seems like "Prometheus" should be the final installment and serve as the "Godfather Part III" of the series.


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