Alien: Covenant (Movie Review)

In 2012, Ridley Scott made his return to science fiction with the Alien prequel, Prometheus, a film that somehow managed to leave viewers with more questions than answers. Alien: Covenant is the inevitable sequel that attempts to answer some of those questions, a task it manages surprisingly well, even though it leaves us with its own set of questions to mull over until the next installment.

In Alien: Covenant, the crew of the titular spaceship is woken up from cryogenic sleep by their resident android, Walter (Michael Fassbender), after their ship sustains some damage during their deep-space mission. They were en route to Origae-6, a habitable planet to which they were transporting the 2,000 colonists aboard their vessel, 16 of which were killed during the accident, along with their captain (James Franco).

This leaves the first mate (Billy Crudup) in charge of their mission, a man of faith who is forced to make a hard decision when their ship intercepts a transmission from a nearby planet. Ignoring the protests of their terraforming expert and dead captain's wife (Katherine Waterson), he leads his crew to the strange planet where it seemed they'd have an even better environment for their colonization mission. But what they find there instead is a world harboring some very disturbing secrets and lifeforms.

If any of that sounds familiar, it's because Alien: Covenant adheres strictly to the formula set by the first film in the series, Alien. This is both a good and a bad thing as Ridley Scott attempts to bring the events of Prometheus closer to the 1979 classic. We get to learn the ultimate fates of the two survivors from the previous film, while we also gain some insight into the origin of the titular aliens in the series, the xenomorphs.

Half the fun is watching the xenomorphs pick off the hapless crew members in increasingly creative and gory ways. And unlike the recent movie release, Life, which was accused of being derivative while exploring a similar premise to the films in the Alien series, Alien: Covenant is consistently thrilling and beautiful to behold, even though we've admittedly seen some variation of all it has to offer before.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (Movie Review)

The Guardians of the Galaxy are back! The ragtag heroes were first introduced in their 2014 self-titled Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, proving that you didn't need established characters to make a great comic book movie. Having succeeded in making them household names, the filmmakers take the guardians on a second galaxy-spanning adventure before their highly-anticipated team up with The Avengers.

Much like the first movie, the film opens with a flash back that reveals more about Star-Lord's origin on Earth, followed by a musical montage. This time around, it is Baby Groot doing the dancing, busting some moves to Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Sky Orchestra, as Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax and Rocket do battle with a giant monster trying to steal some very powerful batteries owned by the Sovereign race. As a reward for their services, the Guardians are given custody of Gamora's sister, Nebula, who she intends to transport to a prison on their home planet.

Before the guardians can leave with their prisoner though, the Sovereign race launch an all-out assault on their ship, having discovered that Rocket had stolen some of their batteries for himself. The guardians are rescued by a man on a strange vessel, but their ship is already too damaged by then that they crash land on a nearby planet. The man comes to their aid, and is revealed to be Star-Lord's estranged father, Ego, a celestial being who is part god, part planet.

He takes Star-Lord, Gamora and Drax to his home world, while Rocket and Baby Groot stay behind to fix their ship and watch over their prisoner. The latter pair is soon captured by the bounty hunter Yondu, who'd been hired by the Sovereign race to hunt down the guardians. On Ego's home world, Star-Lord bonds with his father, but Gamora suspects that everything on the idyllic planet is not as wonderful as it seems.

The first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was praised for its originality and its often slapstick turn of events. And while a good part of that originality has been lost during the wait for the inevitable sequel, the new movie still boasts just as much fun and laughs as the first one, not to mention its own set of killer tunes and stunning visuals.