There are probably certain things you just know about yourself – like whether or not you’d be cut out for daring interplanetary exploration. Personally, I can confidently say that I wouldn’t be much good. NASA ain’t calling.

However, in the Alien franchise, it seems I’d be well-qualified. In Interstellar the crew represent the best of humanity; they’re the bravest, the best scientific minds. Compare this to the inept crew of Prometheus, and the hardscrabble, quotable marines of Aliens. Truth is, Xenomorph Expedition’s workforce are never exactly first draft. No offence, Ripley, ma’am.

This brings us to the Covenant, a beautiful hunk of a ship that houses a crew made up of married couples, all jolted out of hypersleep following a neutrino burst. (Yes I’m going to totally pretend I know what that is.) Playing nursemaid is Walter (Michael Fassbender), the nice android brother/updated model to Prometheus’ smarmy malcontent David.

Now I loved Prometheus. I loved the blueness of it, I loved Shaw – despite everything – and I loved David because the crew were so infuriatingly stupid and hostile you rooted for the evil robot genius. Shaw and David survived the events of Prometheus together and set off to track down the Engineers – the race who created humans.

Sadly missed: Dr Elizabeth Shaw Credit: Twentieth Century Fox

I was probably alone in the universe in basically just wanting Prometheus 2, and with ‘Covenant’ in the title it looked like my prayers might still be answered. More dodgy philosophizing please! I avoided trailers and publicity because I wanted to be surprised in the theatre.

People who didn’t like Prometheus (and, ahem, there were a fair few) had made their feelings known, and as with all things, those who shout the loudest tend to get their way. So I had to get over the disappointment that Covenant wasn’t a continuation of the adventures of David and Shaw, but a return to typical – if bloody – blockbuster terrain.

Covenant’s newly-awakened crew are lured away from their target planet by an eerie transmission that I think was Shaw singing John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’. Upon hearing her, I realized I just couldn’t care about these Covenant losers and I never would.

The only person against deviating from their planned course is Daniels (Katherine Waterston), our Ripley-esque heroine. Widowed when Captain James Franco got Anakin Skywalker’d in his malfunctioning sleep pod, she’s also now second-in-command to Billy Crudup’s wimpy Captain Arm (OK it’s Oram, but it sounded like they were saying ‘arm’).

Daniels and Arm lead some of the other marrieds and a security team on this strange new world and despite knowing nothing about it, people are soon moaning and stopping for cigarette breaks like this is just a routine rekkie. There’s no professionalism, no training, no common sense. I wanted to scream at the screen: “It’s not Earth guys!”

Luckily David is back, so ha-ha for our marrieds! Bye, suckers! David’s been busy experimenting with the Engineer’s black goo bio-weapon, which infects the Covenant idiots, who are so rubbish with firearms they shoot up their own landing craft.

Apart from the creepy android-on-android flute scene, we know where all this is headed: an all-action face-off with an Xenomorph through the halls of the Covenant. This is Aliens minus the snappy dialogue and (my earlier disrespect notwithstanding) the memorable supporting cast.

If Ridley Scott couldn’t do a George Lucas and remain unrepentant following Prometheus, insisting this was the prequel story he always wanted to make only he didn’t have the tech – it might have been better if this venerable franchise had stayed in a permanent cryo-sleep since the 80s.