Thor: Ragnarok

I was out doing a little book shopping in the Chelsea area and decided to catch Thor: Ragnarok sooner rather than wait.  I'm glad I did.  Best thing about Thor: Ragnarok is that it is by far the most entertaining Marvel movie since they broke ground with Iron Man (I).  Also, one of the trailers before Ragnarok had an obligatory nod to another upcoming Marvel flick - the one most anticipated by every brown person I know in Nerdom - Black Panther! Coincidentally, Black Panther promises to be THE coolest Marvel flick of all time... I'm calling it now.

WARNING - THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, SO... Skip everything after the vitals if you have a problem with reading spoilers.

You know how you see a movie trailer and there's a really funny or cool looking part of the movie in the trailer and when you finish watching the movie you realize that you got suckered into paying for some sh# you've already seen the only highlights worth seeing when you watched the trailer... fortunately, this ain't one of those movies. Thor: Ragnarok is everything its trailers advertised and then some - a straight up superhero action comedy.

VITALS

Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople) - Director

Newbies Eric Pearson and Craig Kyle - Writers

Chris Hemsworth (Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, Blackhat) - Thor 

Tessa Thompson (Dear White People, Creed) - Valkyrie

Tom Hiddleston (Midnight in Paris, Thor: The Dark World) - Loki

Cate Blanchett (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Blue Jasmine) - Hela

Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs, Hitchcock) - Odin

Idris Elba (Star Trek: Beyond, The Dark Tower) - Heimdall

Jeff Goldblum (Independence Day, The Switch) - Grandmaster 

Mark Ruffalo (Avengers, Now You See Me) - Hulk/David Banner

The cast also includes appearances by Karl Urban (Star Trek, Dredd) as Skurge and Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek: Into Darkness, The Imitation Game) as Doctor Strange

IF YOU MUST KNOW

Thor picks up about two years after Avengers: Age of Ultron.  Thor has been back on Asgard, fighting the visions/nightmares of the destruction of Asgard and the coming of Ragnarok.

SPOILER ALERT

Ragnarok is coming for Asgard and the conveniently named Hela (Blanchett), goddess of death, is coming with it.  She is more powerful than Thor, Odin's son and shows it when they first meet.  Mjolnir, Thor's hammer, doesn't last 2 minutes in her presence (I know how that sounds, but it's literally true in this movie).  Even Odin bugs out and leaves this battle to Thor and Loki (Hiddleston) to figure it out how to deal on some F* this Sh# I'm Out type business.

Thor gathers up some very reluctant compatriots and is forced to battle with Hela and try to stop what is the foretold destruction of Asgard and it's people.  He accidentally crosses paths with his fellow  Avenger, Hulk/David Banner (Ruffalo).  He enlists the help of Valkyrie (Thompson), an off-world Asgardian warrior.  He even gets Loki to get involved... for a minute, before Loki goes all Loki.  Of course, since this is a hero's journey, it hits all the major story elements of the classic hero's tale.

Hero tale or not, Asgard gets it's a$$ kicked but good.  In fact, just before he bounces, Odin warns Thor and Loki that the only thing Holding Hela back is Odin - the Allfather has some horrible parental habits.  When Hela gets to Asgard her power reaches its height and Thor and his crew do not have enough fire power to stop the goddess of death from laying waste to the entire world.  So... Hela destroys legions of Asgardians and slaps up the god of thunder, but the story really is in what Thor learns about Mjolnir, his family, and especially himself.  No, there was nothing esoteric, but he did discover some things previously unknown to him and tapped into his the depths of his power as the god of thunder.  Summoning all of his power and some pretty cool allies, Thor's crew still can't defeat Hela, so what do they do... well, that I will leave for you to see in the movie.

Hemsworth is funnier than you might expect, but still very much the Thor we all like in the MCU.  Cate Blanchett is always brilliant - don't recall anything she has done when she wasn't stellar.  She was delightfully wicked and amusing (like all of my favorite ex-girlfriends).  Tessa Thompson needs to be in every movie in the MCU - she's fun to watch from the second she shows up in this movie.  Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster was so freaking weird that you had to like him. Nobody played the comedic "straight man" - everybody did something or said something silly or funny.  I can only imagine what this set must have been like for the months they took to film it.  Well, Idris Elba and Anthony Hopkins weren't in it long enough to joke or jape.

The fight choreography could have been better, but it was comic book-y; so, it was fine for what it was.  There's no reason to see this in 3D, but whatever they converted that wasn't shot in 3D still looked good in 3D.  

ASIDE: Interestingly, with all the silliness, there's one thing that has always bothered me about Thor.  There's little to no thunder to be heard.  Lightning... yes, but thunder... too much to ask, I guess. Theoretically, the thunder would follow just one of the lightning bolts flying around this film. You have everything from Thor's sparkly hands to giant bolts of lightning - one would think they could throw some thunderclaps in the movie at some point, but that's just me.  I mean, at least throw a Asgardian Yardie in the background somewhere and let them do a proper thunderclap.  Give me something, boss.

As much as I wanted to give the writers credit for a funny movie that makes you laugh and even makes grown folk giggle throughout, the stars have been talking up how much of the movie was improv or ad-libbed - if that is indeed the case, the writers only deserve credit as far as they crafted the story line and framework for this flick.  Waititi, the director, deserves plaudits for piecing together an entertaining and cohesive film that had a crap-ton of action (the good kind, not the Transformers BS that drags on and on) and was tongue and cheek without being lame.

It's definitely worth seeing.  It's a good date movie  (I hope the one I was going to see this with doesn't realize and read this until long after its on cable - she never does read my stuff, so I should be good money) - assuming your date likes to laugh and isn't one of those posh, I only watch Indie film, I roll my own cigarettes after hot yoga, skinny jean & fedora wearing folks - not that there's anything wrong with that.

Note: Stay for the mid-credit scene, but don't bother staying for the post-credit scene.

IMTHATDUDE gives Thor: Ragnarok: 4

RATING SYSTEM:

5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!

4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Back when Tobey Maguire was introduced to us as Spider-Man (cerca 2002) in the early days of Marvel's box office barrage, it's fairly safe to say that no one thought there could have been a better choice for Peter Parker. After Spider-Man: Homecoming, that is entirely up for debate.  - Maguire is still the best American-bred actor cast to play Spider-Man, now that we've had a brief stint with Andrew Garfield (a Brit) as the Amazing Spider-Man, and now Tom Holland (another Brit) as a fourteen year old high school Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

So far, I have to say, DC still beats Marvel this year despite the excellent casting move of bringing in Holland to play your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.  By that I mean, Wonder Woman is still leading the pack, but this is very, very different kind of superhero movie with a lot less weight on its shoulders.  But I'll get into that a little bit later.

VITALS
Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley (Horrible Bosses, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2) - Writers*
Jon Watts (Cop Car)- Director
Tom Holland (The Lost City of Z, Captain America: Civil War) - Peter Parker/Spider-Man
Laura Harrier (The Last Five Years, 4th Man Out) - Liz
Michael Keaton (Batman, Birdman) - Adrian Toomes/Vulture
Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man, Sherlock) - Tony Stark/Iron Man
Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Wolf of Wall Street) - Happy Hogan
Zendaya (I only know her as some youngin on DWTS) - Michelle
Hannibal Burress (Neighbors, Baywatch) - Gym Coach
Bokeem Woodbine (Riddick, Black Dynamite) - Herman
Jacob Batalon (North Woods...?  never heard of it and won't be seeing it, but w/e) - Ned

*The writers' filmography explains a lot about this movie.

IF YOU MUST KNOW

We first saw this new (younger model) Peter Parker as Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, but now he is being fully introduced in his own flick with a few tweaks to his story line.  In this version of Spider-Man, we meet him as a nerdy - bordering geeky) high school student.  He has just fought alongside the likes of Iron Man, and Black Panther (Aside: I expect his movie to be effing dope! If you haven't seen it, take a look at the link at the bottom of this page.) but is back in Queens... if that don't make you feel bad for the boy, you might be heartless.

Parker, a high school freshman, is struggling with finding his place in life; sounds like a typical coming of age story, but it isn't - although bits are thrown into Spider-Man: Homecoming.  This centers around Parker's handling of what to do post-Avengers linkup.  Along the way we see that Parker is teen crushing on the lovely Liz (Harrier), a senior who is as smart and ambitious as she is cute. By the way, we're supposed to suspend our disbelief and accept that this "girl" is just a high school senior and not just a slim, yet full-grown woman 21 Jump Streeting as a high schooler -

In Parker's quest to prove himself to Tony Stark (RDJ) and become a real Avenger, he ends up trying to thwart what seems a to be local arms dealers trafficking in the sale of converted alien technology (left over from the Avengers battle in New York).  That tech has been converted into weapons that are way too powerful and way too advanced for the men using them in low-level robberies and heists of the brand usually manageable by local heroes like Spider-Man.  When Parker attempts to bring this information to the attention of the Avengers, he gets boofed and silenced because nobody is trying to hear a 14-year old yap about what they know that no one else does (and 9/10 times boofing these kids is the right way to handle that sort of thing).  This puts Spider-Man in direct line of conflict with  the leader of the arms dealing crew, Vulture (Keaton).

Parker accidentally exposes his secret identity to his buddy, Ned (played artfully and accurately by Jacob Batalon), who literally volunteers to be Spider-Man's quintessential sidekick, or as he calls it "the man in the chair."   He's also flanked by the likes of a weird and snarky but darkly comedic Michelle (played by the almost unrecognizable and mononymous, Zendaya), who proceeds to make comments that most of us cynics would probably have thought or said if we saw our friends doing the same things as Petey Parker and Ned.  Michelle strikes the broodingly realistic tones of Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club or Raven from Teen Titans.

I try not to spoil movies by giving too many details about what happens, but I think you get it. Spidey is a teenager, with teenage problems that are complicated by his abilities.  He's had a taste of the big time and wishes for more, which further complicates his life.  Parker's surrounding crew of friends, family, PE coaches, etc., contribute both to his desire to be more than just a teenager in Queens or an obscure neighborhood hero, and also to Parker/Spidey's eventual realization of who he is and what is most important.

So, what makes this movie good, better, or meh...?  Casting was pretty good.  Liz, eh.  Not so sure about that one.   Good actress, but the combination of Harrier* and Holland makes it a bit tough to believe that there could be a romantic relationship.  Keaton played a pretty good villain. The plot landed and the script was pretty strong.  Given the writers' movie history, it makes a lot of sense why this movie was more funny than anything else.  Where the first Iron Man and Thor were witty, this movie was definitely youthfully comedic.  It was a good call to incorporate other marvel characters throughout so that there is support and continuity.  More importantly, we didn't have to see the whole Spider-Man origin story in Homecoming.  Thank you, Sweet Baby Jesus!  

Overall, it was entertaining and better than the last three Spider-Man movies, easily better than Andrew Garfield's (no disrespect he is a stellar actor, but those movies fairly mediocre).  Tough call between Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, but I would give Spider-Man: Homecoming the edge over Guardians.  It was not as much of a heavy lift as Wonder Woman was and there was nothing groundbreaking about it (plus, there was no Gal Gadot which automatically makes this a little bit less than...), so Wonder Woman wins the day.  We'll see if Marvel can top DC's latest when they release their next film in the MCU (for the uninitiated, that's the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Thor: Ragnarok - which will be premiere just before the Justice League movie in November.  Looking forward to that battle.

Note: If you are on a tight schedule, both the mid-credit scene and the post-credit scene are not worth your time.  One was amusing and one added very little to the story or experience.  I waited and watched both and as much as the post-credit scene was clever and all that good stuff it was several minutes of waiting for nothing; so, if you skip it, you'll live and no one will look at you as though you missed some super important reveal if you tell them that you left and they happened to have been foolish enough, like me, to have stayed.

* Post Review Addendum: It turns out, all of the main actors playing high school kids were born in 1996... except for one - Ms. Harrier (Parker's love interest) - she's a youngin, but let's just say - as I told my my ex-girlfriend, "you and I both know I'm always right even when I'm wrong." - I knew one of these kids was doing their own thing.

IMTHATDUDE gives Spider-Man: Homecoming: 4

RATING SYSTEM:

5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!

4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.

AFTER REVIEW EXTRAS

Wonder Woman

Let's be clear, Gal Gadot is straight fire.  I mean she could have been onscreen, sitting on a plain ole chair slowly reading Tolstoy in the original Russian - backwards - and I would be enthralled from the opening credits to the post-credit extras (if there were any... but there are not, so dont stick around Wonder Woman for that).  She's that sexy.  With all the hype and anti-hype by so-called "purists" (better known by their clinical term "maxima haterificus") that Gadot is too thin to play the amazon warrior princess, I went into the movie with a healthy dose of skepticism as to whether it really could be pulled off by someone so striking but relatively unproven as a headliner.

When Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice dropped, I was sure the best part of the movie would be Batman busting Superman's Kryptonian a$$ets, but (although Ben Affleck sucks as Bruce Wayne/Batman) I was never so happily wrong as when I found out that Gadot had completely stolen the show.  Her scenes were BY FAR the best of the film.  It should be no surprise that Wonder Woman is doing so well in the box office.  She crushes the competition out in theaters (Mummy, Pirates of the Caribbean, Alien: Covenant, and even Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. II) and demolishes every female comic book superhero, sci-fi action I have ever seen - no exaggeration.  Then again, that is not exactly the highest of hurdles.  At the charter school I work at, they ask the kids to write and cite their pieces of evidence, so please see (or do not see) the following:

Elektra (Verdict - WEAK all WEEK and 2x on Sunday)

Aeon Flux (Verdict - Wack AF)

Ghost in the Shell (cultural misappropriation aside - I skipped this bs 'cuz it looked lame) 
Verdict - Exit polls say... this lands squarely in Wack County, Wackland 

BloodRayne + Ultraviolet + (Halle Berry's prank of a film) Catwoman

Verdict = WACK, WACK, and Supremely TRASH (respectively)

VITALS
Patty Jenkins (Monster) - Director
Alan Heinberg (if you ever saw a Shonda Rhimes show, you know his writing)- Writer
Zach Snyder (300 and Sucker Punch) - Story By
Gal Gadot - Diana Prince/Wonder Woman
Chris Pine - Steve Trevor
Connie Nielsen - Hippolyta
Danny Huston - Ludendorff
Robin Wright - Antiope
Elena Anaya - Dr. Maru

IF YOU MUST KNOW:
(And I'll keep this part brief...) Steve Trevor crashes and finds himself being rescued by Diana, Princess of Themyscira.  If ONLY... He brings with him tales of a war that that endangers humanity. Diana, much to the chagrin of her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Nielsen) leaves her Amazonian sisters and paradise home to fight the great war.  Of course, Diana is convinced that Ares, the god of war, is behind this great war - I said she was fire, I didn't say she was perfect... (She's Gal Gadot, not Jade Eshete - if you don't who she is, check out Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency).  Having spent most of her life, from adolescence to full grown womanhood, training harder than any amazon has ever been trained, Diana ready to fight whoever.

SPOILER ALERT

Antiope (Wright), Diana's aunt and chief trainer - the baddest warrior woman on the island -catches a bad one and the war (WWI) is brought directly to the Amazon's shore. Diana feels compelled to join the fight to save humanity and her big fish out of water story begins there as she begins to scratch the surface on the breadth of her powers.  She works with Trevor (Chris Pine) to uncover and foil a plan by the sinister Ludendorff (Danny Huston) to use a new weapon of mass destruction that could slaughter millions.

Wonder Woman has always been one of my favorites, but for absolutely no feminist reasons.  Sure, I was in love with Linda Carter's Wonder Woman reruns when I was a kid because she was half-naked; but I had respect for Wonder Woman since she was flying her invisible jet on retrospectively lame, and occasionally racist, Super Friends -

There's about a million reasons to love Wonder Woman.  She's a woman.  She's not some alien who comes to earth and basically is a better human than humans.  She's a princess, but not a spoiled little rich brat (in the way Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark are... no shade).  She gets her powers from birth - albeit by via deities.  Wonder Woman was a dope AF superhero because she stood for the best of humanity and always fought for what was right and could always do whatever her male counterparts - especially if that counterpart was lame ass Aquaman - could do, and often do it better - and look good doing it.  I have always had an affinity for strong women in comics, films, literature (fiction or fact).

This film could be summed up in the scene when Diana poses this question -

And, back in ye olde London, England, when Trevor's secretary explains to Diana Prince what she does as a secretary, Diana quips poignantly.  What's awesome about this superhero is that she doesn't walk into the world of men assuming the cultural gender roles are rules to be obeyed or honored.  She just does what she does and she's unapologetic about it.  That... reminds me of my closest female friends and relatives.  The men around her, who were also relatively heroic in their own right, failed to act when facing seemingly insurmountable odds, but Diana literally pops on a headband, pulls out a sword and gets busy.  It's this sort of dichotomy that smacks you upside the head and makes Wonder Woman so incredible as a character and more than tolerable despite her genuine goodness.  When anti-heroes and anti-heroines abound (Batmans, Ironmans, etc.), Diana Prince/Wonder Woman is the truth.  She's the reason why my smartest and coolest female have "always loved WW" and even dressed up like her for Halloween (I see you, pemora - that pic on IG is priceless!); even for those who didn't read comics at all, they know, respect and love WW.

ASIDE: Superman cannot beat Wonder Woman, you dig? Some may argue it, but he can't. SUPERMAN... and his only weakness is Kryptonite - and possibly corny women.  Wonder Woman bests Superman, who is supposedly the best of us and she does this after being trained by a bunch of kickass women in a paradise shrouded from the realm that contains men.  There's something something poetic and compelling about a character like that.  It's no wonder (pun unintended) that this movie resonates with men and women.

Thankfully, this film was directed by a woman who understands that no one (men or women) enjoy one-dimensional characters or one-dimensional movies enough to make it a success across demographics.  Patty Jenkins captures the right amount of humor, drama, and nuance.  The film isn't perfect, but it really is very good.  Impressive even because of all that it managed to do.  It redefines a genre without being pretentious, self-aggrandizing. or smug in it's own political correctness.  It goes a bit off with the Steve Trevor-Diana Prince romantic piece near the end (but those concerns are merely stylistic).  It also drags a bit with the big fight scene.  The twist is good, but it was not unpredictable which is really a writer + director problem - it's tough to camouflage that kind of thing without completely avoiding any foreshadow, but they have a lot of screenwriting power behind the movie, so it would have been awesome for me to be properly misled.  I was not.  Nevertheless, Wonder Woman is the second best movie of the year (and the only one I've seen better is a different genre).  Aside from Get Out, I haven't seen a movie better than Wonder Woman this year, but the summer is just beginning...

IMTHATDUDE gives Wonder Woman: 4

RATING SYSTEM:

5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!

4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.

3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.

2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…

1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.

Alien: Covenant

So, I wisely went to peep this flick last night (sans my expected company, since she has issues with seeing scary movies after a certain time of night and I have issues with people who are still scared of movies when you're more than a decade past drinking or voting age).  

I usually prefer to see movies alone because of my well documented history of film snobbery.  It's a good thing too because I really wanted to grab a pen and start writing down all the random stuff I saw that either made me scratch my freshly shaven, bristly dome, or bite my lip in utter confusion.  

For fans of the franchise, I'll say this - no Ripley or Dallas, no Sgt. "Look into my eye" Apone, no Vasquez, no Hicks or Hudson, and no James Cameron, but at least it was No PROMETHEUS!  For that, salute - Ridley Scott (Director).  If you had a bunch of big ass bald pale alien giants doing things that didn't make a hell of a lot of sense again, I'm convinced you would have murdered this franchise.  This movie could be best be called Redemption.

VITALS

Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator, American Gangster... but also Exodus: Gods & Kings - Yikes!) - Director
John Logan (Gladiator, Skyfall) - Writer
Dante Harper - Writer
Michael Fassbender (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Assassin's Creed) - Walter/David
Carmen Ejogo (The Purge: Anarchy, Selma) - Karine
Katherine Waterston (Taking Woodstock, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) - Daniels
Billy Crudup (Almost Famous, Watchmen) - Oram
Danny McBride (Pineapple Express, This is the End) - Tennesee
Amy Seimetz (You're Next, Upstream Color) - Faris

IF YOU MUST KNOW

So, I believe we left off just a bit after this happened - 
So after the Prometheus flick fiasco, we find ourselves watching the crew of the Covenant, a ship full of dumb ass colonists (mostly white folks), head towards an extremely remote but habitable planet they are to terraform and prepare it for future generations of humans. 

Clearly, there is no way they're getting my people on a space slave ship.  You can add all the Carmen Ejogos you want to, we not falling for your Jedi mind tricks.  I'd be staying my black ass right here on Earth - you can keep your interstellar gentrification.  It starts off all artesenal shops and log cabins with no curtains in a new, rustic world, and ends up like this -

*** SPOILER ALERT ***
Anyway, the crew of the Covenant gets abruptly awakened by a tragically unexpected event in deep space.  The event threatens the mission of the Covenant to bring its cargo of thousands of dumb ass colonists to their distant destination.  Fortunately, they discover a planet that is far closer with a much better likelihood of successful colonization - it cuts seven years off of hibernation from them.  What could possibly go wrong? 

It is there that the real danger begins.  David (Fassbender) has survived and plays host to the intrepid crew investigating the planet, but not long after, they find these things waiting for them >>

Again, SPOILER ALERT...

The planet ends up being a planet filled with the dead bodies of the giant bald white aliens.  It's where David and Dr. Shaw headed to at the end of Prometheus in search of the ancient race of aliens they believed to be responsible for the evolution and development of human beings.  

You can guess the results.  Yes... damn near everybody dies.  Stop acting like you thought people would get out of this okay.  When was the last time somebody walked away from an encounter with the Aliens?

The writers couldn't resist the urge to connect antiquity with a mythology it began developing in Prometheus (I can respect that, even if I don't like it); they had David citing Shelley's  Ozymandias.  Interestingly, there are a bunch of different little tweaks and twists that they give us in this movie that make it worth seeing for fans of the series.  If you are not a fan, it probably doesn't do much for you.  In fact, there was nothing remotely scary about it.  The scare factor in this movie was far below that found in Get Out (which is AWESOME, buy it or see it if you still can in the theater).

The best thing about Alien: Covenant was the fact that the movie returned to its roots of stomach popping, evil synthetics, butt kicking female leads, and space colonization.  The lack of action allowed everyone to be actors and not let the special effects smother the generally exceptional talent level of the actors in the movie.  That's good...right?  Yes and no.  The lack of action in an Aliens movie makes for a fairly boring movie and this was only saved by the abilities of Ejogo, Crudup, Waterston, and a couple of others.  Alien: Covenant ends up on that directly on the borderline between drab and semi-compelling.

The bad things were the little details (like how Walter was stitching himself with the stapler which made a lot of sounds of staples, but when they showed what he was stitching... nada), or people doing stupid stuff, or how the foreshadowed deaths, betrayals, and twists were not remotely surprising (like how they all but told us what the end would be as soon as we see David).  More importantly, there was not one sympathetic character; by that, I mean I didn't give AF if they all got mercked and they basically did.   The thing about the first two movies was that they made the characters so well-rounded that you actually liked a few of them and disliked others.  In Alien: Covenant, everyone but David - who we already know was a turd from the time he put his nasty finger in that glass of water in Prometheus - was good at heart, caring, willing to risk their life for each other, and blah blah blah.  Yet, there was not one line from Alien: Covenant that is memorable or quotable.  People who never saw Aliens can quote lines from it:

 - Get away from her you, b!tch!
 - So, why don't you put her in charge!
 - Is this a bug hunt?
 - He's coming in... gee, I feel safer already.
 - There's some juicy colonists daughters from their virginity.
 - It was a bad call, Ripley.  It was a bad call. 
 - Is there anything I can do?/I don't know, is there anything you can do?
 - Hey, maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked.

And one of my personal favorites:

 - Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?

The list goes on.

Go see it if you're a fan.  If you aren't a fan, skip it and wait for it to pop up on-demand.  It's not a rush out and see flick (like I did), so I guess I'm going to have to find a way to let my friend slide for chickening out on this not-scary scary movie.  

IMTHATDUDE gives Alien: Covenant: 3

RATING SYSTEM:

5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!

4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.

3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.

2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…

1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.