Narm / Alien: Covenant

• The infamously advertised birth of the Neomorph, while horrifying in and of itself, will have you palming your face and sighing in exasperation at the sheer clumsiness and stupidity that follows, resulting in the Covenant shuttle going up in a ball of orange flames. Playing the theme song of "The Benny Hill Show" while you read the recap below is the perfect way to set the tone for the comedy of errors that follows. It is debatable whether this was intended to be Black Comedy, or it just ended up being unintentionally hilarious.
  • Faris locks the infirmary door, trapping Ledward and a panicking Karine inside, then rushes back and forth between the cockpit to ask her husband what to do over the radio and checking on how big the rapidly swelling lump on Ledward's back is getting, with Karine hurling obscenities at her and demanding she open the door.
  • Ledward crumples backwards like a drunk puppet with its strings cut off as the star of tonight's show, the Baby Neomorph, jumps from the obviously CGI hole in his spine like a strawberry-jam covered pop-tart out of a bony toaster, and leaps for the understandably upset and scalpel-waving Karine. She punts the little fella away like a Satanic chihuahua, but unfortunately he still wants to play and runs in for a second round...
  • When Faris finally returns with a shotgun to find that Ledward's become the proud (and dead) parent of a snarling little space monster who is now busy making a meal out of Karine's throat, she naturally marches into the infirmary to try and get a better shot, only to slip, trip and fall over in a massive pool of blood and accidentally fire her shotgun in the air.
  • As the newborn and still-hungry Neomorph lunges for her thigh, Faris scrambles out the door and hits the emergency lock before she gets her left foot out of the doorway, thereby crushing her ankle. Then she hops downstairs like a lawn-ornament flamingo and grabs another shotgun to greet her pale newborn stalker… which would be a good idea if only (1) she could hit the broad side of a barn (2) the airlock wasn't filled with OPEN shelves full of packages that are CLEARLY LABELLED "Danger: Explosives".
  • Unfortunately, Faris shoots so badly that even Imperial stormtroopers would laugh her out of town, missing each and every shot while the little pale Alien rascal deftly dodges around the cargo bay, inevitably resulting in one of the shots hitting the aforementioned explosive lockers. The boarding party in the distance (and we, the audience) watches incredulously as the Covenant's boarding shuttle blossoms into a huge fireball, with the amateur markswoman stumbling out of the wreck she made as a walking bonfire before collapsing.
  • To rub salt in the wound, our brave little Neomorph runs out of the wreck and into the distant grass, completely unharmed.
  • Even later, Tennessee makes a comment about how his wife, Faris, is not someone to get afraid. This is in total contrast to the panicky, hysterical woman who falls to pieces the second that she hears that Ledward is sick and bleeding.
• David and Walter's weird romance. Aside from the admittedly-impressive effects with Fassbender playing against himself, the whole scene is just laughable. The topper has to be David's line "I'll do the fingering" (referring to a flute). Cue laughter from the audience.
• Ankor's death by sting slashing of his jaw, while stylized and gruesome, is actually kind of a melodramatic Minor Injury Overreaction: even if someone was to die from that type of wound, their death would be very slow, painful and bloody, not instantly as the film portrays (where Ankor even falls dead on his knees with a rather amusing shocked face). It is even worse because the worst of the injury is obscured by the speed of the scene, making it look like Ankor merely got a Glasgow Grin, so the viewer might get surprised that he really died from that.
• David and Walter's fight is not any less unintentionally funny.
  • The first instance has David stabbing Walter with the flute. While it can be forgiven for being unexpected, it almost becomes Black Comedy. Also, that the flute's hollow end is somehow sharpened enough to pierce through anything is surprising enough.
  • The second instance, however, has Walter proclaiming to be an improved model over David, only for David to kick his ass for most of the fight, despite Walter wielding a knife. If anything, David seemed the superior model, not Walter.
  • The third, not any less ridiculous, is David nailing Walter with a Professional Wrestling spinning heel kick a la Savio Vega, not the most practical martial arts move and definitely not the kind of efficient fighting technique you would program an android worker with. Even worse, the move itself is obscured by a bad camera shot, which makes it look like a dropkick or a random tumble that hits Walter by chance depending on the viewer's eye.
  • The last point comes when Walter manages to spinebust David against a rock. Bang, that's the end of the fight after so many strikes and moves. Never mind that, after impersonating Walter, David shows no lasting effects from the move, making one wonder how it was supposed to knock him out.
• The Chestburster that Oram gives birth to turns out to be Ugly Cute instead of Nightmare Fuel. Its imitation of David's affectionate "open arms" gesture is just so adorable, coupled with heartwarming music no less, it is pure hilarious Nightmare Retardant. One thinks of Mel Brooks' parody in Spaceballs.
  • Can cross into Narm Charm if you squint. It can be creepy because of those exact reasons if one thinks David is the thing we should be scared of in the movie. It can come across as something along the lines of a Mad Scientist seeing his creation for the first time.
• You know, kids; being in love is nice and all, but when you star in a monster movie, it's generally NOT a good idea to have sex in the showers, and it's an even worse idea to play deafeningly loud rock music to accompany said literally-steamy-hot-sex so that you can't hear the warning broadcast that a homicidal monster is now at large on your ship. Enjoy starring in your own Bates Motel Shower Scene tribute, you crazy lovebirds you! It doesn't help that the movie suddenly cuts to the shower in utter Mood Whiplash and the two characters have had so little screentime you would be excused for having forgotten they are even in the movie.
• The questioning from Oram to his wife Karine about being passed up for the leadership role aboard the Covenant; he suggests that this was because he's a religious man, and yet nothing in the film suggests any prejudice from the other crew members. By contrast, his early lack of compassion - denying Daniels and co the opportunity to mark the passing of her husband and their captain - and the number of poor decisions he makes across the film suggest something else entirely, that he was passed up simply because he wasn't good enough for the job.
  • It also seems rather odd for a self-proclaimed religious man to insist on not having a funeral, even a quick one.
  • His rambling, awkward, cliché-ridden eulogy/I-am-in-command-now-speech tells us right away this guy isn't qualified to command a beer run, which makes one wonder exactly why he was even given the XO post in the first place.
• When confronting David after killing the Neomorph, Oram makes a comment about having "met the devil when he was a child". At no point is this followed up on or explained beyond that and given the events that follow — namely, blindly following David and letting him lead him into a trap — it seems totally random.
  • Not to mention that when he first wakes up from being attacked by a facehugger, the first thing Oram asks him is not something a regular person would ask such as "What the fuck just happened?" or "What did you do to me?" or "What was that?" No, he asks him, "What do you believe in, David?" It's like the screenwriter was begging to throw in David's response.

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