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Sunday, May 28, 2017

Alien: Covenant Review

My partner and I went on a spontaneous movie date on the weekend and decided to see Alien: Covenant. I haven't seen all of the Alien films so far, but I saw Prometheus in cinemas and enjoyed the snippets of the other films that I've seen.

Alien: Covenant starts on a philosophical note, with a throw-back to the creation of David, the synthetic who was on board the Prometheus. Cut to Covenant, a space vessel on a cross-galaxy expedition to settle a colony on a far-away planet, were Walter is overseeing the day-to-day upkeep of the ship while the crew and colonists are in cryosleep. An unforeseen emergency requires the crew to suddenly wake up and thus begins the action. There is death before we even see any aliens, and although the audience doesn't get the chance to form a bond with the deceased crew member, we do start caring about the crew mates left behind as they deal with the sudden loss.

Amidst grieving and repairing the ship, the crew picks up a rogue signal from a nearby planet that looks potentially inhabitable and go in for a closer look; they are excited by the prospect of reaching a planet to colonize, as their original target is still 7 years away. A portion of the crew takes a lander vessel down and soon enough, the audience picks up signs of danger that the characters are oblivious to. After losing half of the ground crew to aliens (in both classic burst-out-of-your-body and maul-the-fuck-outta-you styles), the remaining handful are seemingly rescued by David, the synthetic from the Prometheus, which disappeared ten years early.

Naturally, the audience should be suspicious of David, as he tells an overly simplistic tail to explain the fate of the Prometheus crew. He's a little too curious about the colony mission and details like how many colonists the Covenant is transporting. I felt that the newly made captain Oram gave up this information a little too easily and could have exercised better caution in the presence of this stranger. The relationship David tries to forge with the Covenant's synthetic, Walter, is creepy at best and there are alarm bells going off left, right, and centre that David is up to something. The fact that both of the synthetics are played by Michael Fassbender (who does an excellent job, by the way) makes the audience more and more distrustful and we do double-takes in every scene where they both appear. Will David get Walter on board with his insidious plans? Will they do a good ol' switcheroo?

One of the highlights of the film for me was when David recites 'Ozymandias' in front of Walter. This is accompanied by a revelation of some of David's horrific actions between arriving on this planet and the arrival of the Covenant crew. Amidst this discussion of creation and perfection, Walter asks David who wrote 'Ozymandias', and David wrongly attributes the poem to Lord George Gordon Byron. The dynamics between David and Walter were certainly my favourite part of the film.

The death-tally shot up as the movie drew to a close and sure enough there was a false sense of security before more and more danger was revealed. But I won't spoil the ending. I liked it, so you should go watch it and make your own judgments on the juicy details.

Have you seen Alien: Covenant yet? What did you think? 
- Bonnee.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

A Review or Two (or Three)

It's been a while since I posted so I thought I'd share some thoughts on recent viewings. Warning: these reviews definitely contain spoilers. 

1. Attack on Titan is back! At long last fans are sinking their teeth into the long awaited season 2. I think I need to re-watch the first season to refresh my memory because it has been SO LONG. The new season kicks off flawlessly from where the previous season ended and didn't miss a beat, but in classic Attack on Titan style, the new episodes raise more questions than they answer. Things are fast-paced and tense and I have spent every episode so far fearing for each character's life (I was so scared for Sasha in the episode she featured in). After the big reveal about Ymir in the most recent episode, we're all taking guesses on which beloved character will be revealed to be a titan next. My friends and I are all in agreement over one thing; the beast titan makes us very, very uncomfortable and it has way too much power and autonomy for a titan. I am eager for the next episode, but I am sure this season will end all too soon.

2. I saw Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on Sunday night with my partner and some friends from uni (triple date!). I loved the first Guardians movie, but I have learned not to put too much faith in sequels. It wasn't terrible, but it nowhere near lived up to the first movie. Some of the humour was uncomfortably forces, even for satire, and there wasn't enough time devoted to building relationships between the characters, especially Peter and Ego. I did love the heavier themes the film touched on, such as the discovery that Ego had spawned many children in an attempt to create another being who could harness the power of a Celestial, and the fate all those who came before Peter had met. And a well-deserved audible gasp went to the revelation that he had given Peter's mother the tumour that ended her life. Yondu's character development and heroic redemption at the end was heartbreaking and brilliant and I can't pick a favourite character between him and Drax.

3. My partner's parents got us tickets to see the musical The Book of Mormon for Christmas and our session was earlier this week. Great seats, not far from the front, but by God the Princess Theatre needs to renovate--it's a mile drop into your fold-down chair and you may as well introduce yourself to anyone who needs to get past you to get to their own seat because you can't fit two people past each other without rubbing up the whole length of each other. It is uncomfortable to say the least. But the show itself: that was spectacular. A satirical musical about Mormon Missionaries in Uganda, it pokes honest fun at evangelism and cultural stigmas alike, with songs like 'Hello' and 'Hasa Diga Eebowai'. The cultural stigma related humour was especially uncomfortable, but the musical was unapologetic in its portrayal of confronting matters, illustrating the uselessness of slamming religion down the throats of those trying to deal with horrific circumstances when it doesn't help in any material sense. However, the conclusion which saw the Ugandan villagers find hope in Elder Arnold Cunningham's ... imaginative retelling of The Book of Mormon, based on metaphors involving frogs and Star Wars references, indicated that in times of need people are capable of opening up to advice they wouldn't normally take if they think it might help them through. In this case, the production ended with a reprise of the opening song, 'Hello', but instead of preaching The Book of Mormon, the characters were sharing The Book of Arnold. Overall, quite enjoyable and I haven't been to the theatre in far too long.

I hope you enjoyed these little reviews. Have you seen Attack on Titan, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, or The Book of Mormon? What were your thoughts?