By George Haerle

For The Daily World

Don’t expect anything as good as the first “Alien” — that’s the first thing to remember when going into “Alien: Covenant.”

That being said, if you enjoyed the vague and cryptic origins of this saga in “Prometheus” and have been chomping at the bit to delve more into the mysterious mythos of the xenomorph (technical name for the titular creature), “Alien: Covenant” is just as good, maybe a bit better. It’s also weird, exploring questions and philosophy of the potentially violent nature of the origin of life.

Ten years after the events of “Prometheus,” a ship of 2,000 colonists and the crew aboard a the spaceship Covenant are taking a multiyear space voyage to terraform a new planet and establish a new base of humanity. All of the inhabitants are couples who are making the voyage together to start families on their new home world. This adds an effective bit of emotional depth to the movie, knowing that every time someone dies horrifically, another character is crushed by their death. And boy, do a lot of people die horrifically in “Covenant.”

When an anomaly occurs in deep space, disrupting their journey and causing a few critical casualties to the crew, they are forced to stop, mourn the dead and make repairs. As they patch up the ship, they receive a rogue transmission from a different planet much closer than their original destination — and apparently more ideal than their original destination to begin a new life. This turns out to be a very bad idea.

What appears to be a paradise is slowly revealed to be closest physical manifestation of hell, and the crew of the Covenant just may bring back the devil with them. The planet is quite habitable, and lush with vegetation. The air is breathable, the water drinkable. But there are no signs of animal life, no crickets, no birds, nothing, except for something that can only be described as the missing link of the Alien monster evolution.

This new monster, dubbed the neomorph by fans, is freakin’ horrific. The filmmakers did a great job with these creepy suckers, even though they are completely CGI (have no fear in that they are quite believable), and the few scenes with them are very memorable. These are the monsters that are basically the step before the movie reintroduces the xenomorph in the third act. This is where the movie stops sharing similarities with “Prometheus” and becomes an Alien movie.

The cast all around does a good job; no one is lacking in any area I would say, and there are a couple of great standouts. Katherine Waterston plays Daniels, a lead crew member who has suffered significant loss. She’s the only person who warns ship captain Oram (Billy Crudup, who is the horror-movie trope of a walking bad decision here) that touching down on an uncharted planet with all of the requirements to foster hostile life forms is probably a bad idea.

Waterston is essentially in the Ellen Ripley role here, and she’s good enough to be worthy of the lead. She has the resourcefulness of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, and has a great amount of vulnerability to the audience because of her character’s incredibly tragic backstory; and Waterston makes this element to Daniels wholeheartedly believable.

Michael Fassbender returns to play Walter, the Covenant’s android, and is just great as always. Where he played the calculating and creepy David in “Prometheus,” Walter is much more docile and an all-around good guy (very much like Bishop in “Aliens”). He also is capable of sympathizing with people, taking a special liking to Daniels (whether platonically or romantically is up to the audience to decide). Some scenes between him and a surprise character in the second act are just phenomenal — so much so that they could make a whole movie about Walter and that character who shares a fascinating bond with him.

Last but not least is Danny McBride, playing Tennessee, the Covenant’s pilot. McBride, who is best known for comedies like “Pineapple Express” and “Tropic Thunder,” is really given a chance here to shine and test out his acting chops, and he very much succeeds. I hope he gets plenty more work in dramatic roles as well as comedy. He has totally earned it here.

Director Ridley Scott, who made the original “Alien” as well as “Prometheus,” knows that after so many sequels and so many years of being in the pop-culture spotlight, the Alien creature has lost most of the mystery surrounding it, which was what made it so frightening in the first place. Where the original was like a haunted-house movie in space, where the monster was always hidden amongst the shadows and machinations of the spaceship, Scott and the filmmakers have opted to show the xenomorph in the full light of day here. This works very well at times, not so much at others.

The xenomorph is full CGI, and the shots that are up close and personal are great and realistic — but the pulled-back shots showing it in full view, or crawling around on all fours, look a bit fake at times. That being said, it’s still scary. This isn’t the exact same breed of Alien seen in the other movies, and Covenant makes sure to clarify that. It looks 90 percent similar, but is biologically different — and is much more aggressive and violent. This is the part of the new Alien that works so well.

Here’s the disclaimer: Not everyone will like this movie. It will be very divisive, based on the comments I heard coming out of the theater. Some people will love “Alien: Covenant.” My review can’t quite describe how weird and different it actually is, especially its incredibly philosophical second act. It’s a love-it-or-hate-it kind of movie — but it’s at least worth the price of admission to find out which way you’ll lean.

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“Alien: Covenant” is playing at the Riverside Cinemas, 1017 S. Boone St. in Aberdeen.

George Haerle holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing for media and lives in Cosmopolis.

20th Century Fox A scene from the film “Alien: Covenant.”