Parents' Guide to Alien: Covenant

While the story offers little new -- it seems patched together from Alien, Prometheus, and even Blade Runner -- director Ridley Scott's moody, thoughtful style makes this sequel worth seeing. Alien: Covenant, which is -- counting the two Alien vs. Predator movies -- the eighth in the Alien franchise, starts quite similarly to the original 1979 film. It has an unexpected wake-up call, an investigation, and the discovery of the horrid monster.

But even as Covenant moves into territory already covered by Scott's other sci-fi movies, it proves that Scott knows what he's doing. He creates powerful, striking imagery right out of myth, from a doomed necropolis filled with blackened, statue-like bodies to David's years-old laboratory cave, filled with creepy specimens and papers flapping quietly in the chilling draft. And the slightly faster, noisier way that Scott handles the alien attacks -- they're not as spooky as they were in the original -- is easily forgiven after scenes between David and Walter arguing over the meaning of existence.