Alien: Covenant
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: May 19, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 52 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
18
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekMay 18, 2017
Alien: Covenant is reasonably entertaining. But it slips off course after that opening section, and the problem is caused by the very creatures we presumably came to see. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerMay 8, 2017
An upgrade from Prometheus, Alien: Covenant amps up the thrills but doesn't deliver a memorable crew member or the full-on onslaught of the series at its height. Read full review
60
Total FilmJordan FarleyMay 7, 2017
Sharper, meaner, and meatier than Prometheus, Covenant's weak narrative drive stalls its brutal good intentions. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 6, 2017
The film is very capably made, with forceful, potent performances from Waterston and Fassbender. That franchise title is, however, looking increasingly wrong. It is a bit familiar. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 6, 2017
As acts of creation go, Scott has made an “Alien” movie for that segment of the audience that has always rooted for the monster. Read full review
60
Village VoiceBilge EbiriMay 6, 2017
If in the end it doesn’t quite work — if its many fascinating pieces and ideas and odds and ends don’t ever cohere into a whole — lament not what might have been. Instead, be grateful that Ridley Scott has lost none of his ability to provoke, captivate and infuriate. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeMay 6, 2017
Really, this is David/Walter’s show. For reasons too spoilery to give away, Fassbender is electric, giving a spectacularly skin-crawling performance. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoMay 6, 2017
Scott’s latest is a thrill-ride that blasts through celestial carnage, while building a bigger Alien world that might not be 100% necessary. Out of all the films in the franchise, Alien: Covenant has the least stand-alone potential – but dammit if it’s not a wild, warp-speed-killing-machine adventure. Read full review
50
VoxAlissa WilkinsonMay 24, 2017
Alien: Covenant would probably be a better movie if it had calmed down and narrowed its scope. And yet you have to respect Scott’s ambition, even if you don’t like his movie. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMay 22, 2017
This film is at once sumptuous with thrills and surplus to requirements. Let sleeping aliens lie. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMay 20, 2017
The new film is intended to act as several things, none of them particularly admirable. It is a sequel to the underperforming and largely confusing "Prometheus"; it is a prequel to Scott’s own 1979 classic "Alien." Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMay 19, 2017
We’re still essentially in the Land of Retread: An outer space voyage turns grisly-ghastly as gloppy, befanged creatures invade the crew’s innards and pop out – gotcha! – right on cue. Read full review
50
SlateSam AdamsMay 15, 2017
The relationship between these two Fassbenders is at the heart of Alien: Covenant, and it’s one of the few things that really entertain on a level beyond the technical. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJake ColeMay 14, 2017
The only saving grace of the film's mostly recycled horrors is how they deepen Michael Fassbender's android David. Read full review
50
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganMay 6, 2017
It’s a long, flat, no-frills journey which struggles to engage despite its many bloody shocks. Read full review
43
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJun 1, 2017
The first third of Alien: Covenant is suitably gripping. The final third is wreathed in tension reminiscent of the film’s 1979 progenitor, Alien. The second third sandwiched in between these bookends is equally interminable and dumb, a garbage-level studio-prompted exercise in origin narrative, built to demystify intellectual property where mystification is a key factor in its success. Read full review
42
ConsequenceMichael RoffmanMay 11, 2017
In one corner, you have Scott, fighting to tell an existential thriller about gods, creators, and evolution, and in the other, you have this obvious insistence to pay an ungodly amount of fan service to the past. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiMay 17, 2017
Rarely do I comment on characters’ hairstyles in movies, but the decision to give Waterston a hybrid bowl-cut/Prince Valiant bob is one of the most ill-advised things this film does. And in a film that treats its audience like morons, that is saying something. Read full review
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