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    A passing deep space salvage vessel finally finds the lone survivor of the Nostromo, Ripley, 57 years after entering cryo sleep.  When she returns to Earth Ripley tells her story to the company, who holds her responsible for the loss of the ship and the cargo it was carrying.  No one believes her about the creature that wiped out her crew and they take her license to crew a ship away.  Right before she hears about that decision to suspend her license she finds out that her daughter has died of old age while she was in cryo sleep.  Later a member of the company, Carter Burke, shows up to ask her if she would consider traveling with a group of marines to investigate the planet where she says they discovered the alien.  It seems that the colony on that island has stopped communicating and with her report of the alien life form they are going to investigate.  She initially refuses, but after another sleepless night and with the promise of restoring her license she agrees to go.  Everything goes smoothly until the marines and Ripley arrive on the planet, only to discover all of the colonists except one small girl are missing.  Things go from bad to worse when the marines finally do run into the aliens and as one character puts it “get their asses kicked”.  The rest of the movie is a shrinking group of survivors trying to find their way off of the planet so that they can nuke the facility from orbit.  Eventually Ripley has to face off with the alien queen in what is one of the most exciting finales to any movie that I’ve ever seen. 

    The first two films of the Alien series are both excellent movies that strangely enough aren’t really even in the same genre.  The first film was a really excellent and scary movie that is played as a haunted house.  This second movie doesn’t pack nearly the tension or suspense that the first film had.  The second movie is one of the best action films that I’ve ever seen.  Where the first movie kept you entertained with a slowly building sense of dread the second one just keeps throwing well choreographed and executed action scenes at the audience.  Now I don’t want to sound as if there is not a plot, because there is a very interesting plot to this movie.  As we find out earlier (if you watch the directors cut) Ripley had a daughter that has died of old age while she was gone.  So when the character of the little girl, Newt, is introduced her motherly instincts to protect her are understandable.  In fact Sigourney Weaver’s performance as Ripley in this second film is in my opinion far superior to the first film.  This isn’t a comment on her skills as an actress, but should be attributed to the superior script that James Cameron wrote for the film.  This interaction between Ripley and Newt is what really gives Aliens it heart and soul.  Honestly with the exception of maybe Lance Henriksen’s performance as Bishop the rest of the characters are there to be killed by the aliens and deliver snappy dialog (game over man!).   

    If I have one complaint about Aliens it would have to involve some of the special effects used in the movie.  The alien creatures themselves look really great, especially the queen.  Since this film predates the use of CGI they had to make a puppet that could be manipulated on set.  The detail and creativity of master effects artist Stan Winston have never looked better and the queen is one of the best creatures that I’ve ever seen.  Where the movie breaks down for me would be the shots that they used miniatures in.  While very well done they still do look like models, especially the shots where they used rear projection to show people moving inside of the buildings.  This is nothing more than a television sitting behind the windows of the model.  I understand that in the mid 80s on the budget that they had it was the best that could be done.  In fact I remember seeing the movie in theaters when it came out and thinking that the effects were really good.  But if there is one place that the movie does show it’s age it would have to be the effects shots mentioned above.  I guess sometimes old school isn’t the best way to go. 

    As I did with the Alien review I want to talk a little about the extras that are available on the new double disc edition of this movie.  As with that film the Aliens extras disc contains more than two hours of documentaries, as well as enough pictures from the sets to satisfy even the most die hard fan of the series.  The documentary takes the film from the 90-page treatment that convinced the studio execs to wait several months for Cameron to finish another project, right up to the release of the movie. There are no punches pulled in these documentaries, which cover many unpleasant subjects from Cameron being pretty much hated by the British crew, to the firing of the director of photography.  Also discussed are the issues that James Horner had when trying to write the score for the movie that caused a rift between he and Cameron that existed until he (Cameron) sought Horner out to do the music for Titanic.  These are just a few of the juicy tidbits that you get from watching the second disc.  Additionally I found it very interesting to see how many of the visual effects were pulled off by the effects crews.  On disc one you have the option of watching the theatrical version or the director’s cut.  I recommend the director’s cut because of two reasons.  First is that you get a bit more back-story, which makes the Ripley and Newt relationship more interesting.  Secondly this is the cut that Cameron wanted to release to theaters but was forced to trim because the studio thought it was too long.   

    A few effects shots that don’t hold up well isn’t enough to take away from what is a classic sci-fi action movie.  Hell honestly I can’t think of a better sci-fi action movie than Aliens.   Add to that a disc of extras that by itself would be worthy of a 4 star classic review and you just can’t go wrong.   

Rating - **** 

John “El Juan” Shatzer