“Prometheus” was a spark of hope after the “Alien” franchise hadn’t given us anything good since the 1980s. I hoped that “Alien Covenant” would answer some of the questions that had been left by “Prometheus” but instead we get conned by a film that does very little to advance the plot.

The crew of a colony ship discover an uncharted world that seemingly looks like a suitable alternative to their current destination. They change course and find a world that at first appears to be a paradise but it isn’t long before things go south. The horrifying Xenomorphs are on this planet and so is something else.

Michael Fassbender (“X-Men: First Class”, “Shame”) plays both David (the android from “Prometheus”) and Walter and the character is just terrible this time around. Some of the revelations about the David character are just plain weird and I didn’t care about anything to do with the character. Katherine Waterston (“Inherent Vice”) plays Daniels and is fairly dull. The Xenomorphs get very little screen time and they don’t seem to pack the same punch this time that they did in “Alien” and “Aliens”. I was very disappointed by what little we see of the Engineers/Space Jockeys.

“Alien Covenant” is not a terrible movie and it’s not even the worst of the “Alien” franchise but it just seems like a real waste. What little new material that it offers seems very irrelevant and I felt that by the end of this movie, we were in the exact same position as we were at the end of “Prometheus”. I really hope that there is no direct sequel to this movie (but I suspect that there will be) and I instead hope that we get a new “Alien” film that actually give us something creative and interesting.