If ‘Covenant’ script were lazier, it would need a recliner

Almost 40 years after its original release, Ridley Scott’s “Alien” remains a masterwork of tone, vision and cosmic dread. Its narrative mythos was one that begged for further inspection on the big screen, even though it told its tale with singular, primal ferocity.

Seven years later, director James Cameron punctured the picture with a big-ol’ needle full of anadrol with “Aliens,” replacing the creepy minimalism with a thunderous battle cry as it stormed through its chapter with speed and savagery.

After that, the series seemed to fracture and deteriorate with each successive installment, unsure as to what path it wished to take with its creation: should it stick to its meditative and artful origins (“Alien 3,” “Alien: Resurrection”) or should it focus on the slime-coated action of the sequel (“Alien vs. Predator,” “Alien vs. Predator: Requiem”)?

When it was announced back in 2010 that Scott had more “Alien” tales to tell, it felt like he might singlehandedly be able to erase decades of desecration to the name and return the series to its polished past.

Then he gave us “Prometheus.” The film was only a “quasi-prequel” to “Alien,” and Scott decided to give us his musings on man’s origins, featuring some of the most boneheaded crews ever to be ejected into space.

It was indeed visionary, but equally cross-eyed. And there were very few aliens - as we have come to know them - to be found throughout its runtime.

“Alien: Covenant” was supposed to bridge that gap. It was meant to combine the contemplative nature of “Prometheus” with the face-hugging, acid-blooded heart of the film that started it all. And in a sense, the film does this, but in the process it loses any semblance of the grand, sweeping scope that we were once promised.

In fact, if the script for “Covenant” was any lazier, it would have come with a recliner.

Taking its title from a colonization spaceship heading toward the planet last visited by synthetic human David (played by Michael Fassbender) and Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (played by Noomi Rapace), “Covenant” is stocked with indistinguishable characters that only serve as alien chow.

They systematically get picked off as they make one moronic move after another.

From Billy Crudup’s reluctant captain Oram (whose faith supposedly had some consequence on his leadership) to pensive “Dani” Daniels (played by Katherine Waterston, who sure ain’t no Ripley) to Danny McBride’s hayseed crewman named Tennessee, there’s not a single standout on board.

It’s of no real matter, since there’s hardly a single original idea in “Covenant.”

Even its third-act “twist” is one that you could spot without a telescope.

When it comes to the eventual infestation, it plays fast and loose with the legends established in previous films (those damn things take only minutes to gestate now, and once out of the host are capable of running, killing and saluting their “leader”... no joke).

Sure, there are a couple tense scenes of stalking, but honestly nothing this year’s “Alien” knockoff “Life” didn’t do much more effectively in just 90 minutes.

Scott attempts to sprinkle the film with grander themes of creation and purpose, but they may as well have mixed in midichlorians, Infinity Stones or flavor crystals, and it would have made the same impact on the overall story.

By its conclusion, “Covenant” spins its wheels like a market-tested product meant to keep the franchise in the collective consciousness until the studio gets the “bright” idea to reboot the series and start anew. But by then, it will take more than a chest-popping xenomorph to get our hearts once again racing for this series.