aliens review

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Average Ratings

Value for Money	10/10
Reviewer Rating	10/10
Overall Rating	10/10

100% Recommended2 out of 2 Reviews

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By TOMLEECEE on 15th Feb 2005

TOMLEECEE's Ratings

Starring Actor/Actress	Sigourney Weaver, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen
Where Did You See It?	DVD
Value for money	10/10
Overall value	10/10
TOMLEECEE's recommendation

Good Points

Great sequel
Excellent special effects
Individuality of character
One liners
Sense of scale
Action scenes

Bad Points

Alien 3 and Resurrection aren't a patch on it

General Comments

Released in 1986, Aliens is James Cameron's sequel to the award-winning Alien (1979) directed by Ridley Scott. Starring Sigourney Weaver as Flight Lt Ellen Ripley, the film picks up 57 years after the self-destruction of the freight ship Nostromo with the interception of Ripley's lifeboat. Plagued by nightmares of her ordeal with the first Alien and the slaughter of the Nostromo's crew (who can forget John Hurt's legendary chest bursting scene?!), Ripley awakes onboard the near earth space station Gateway.

Here she learns (much to her dismay) that she is being held responsible for the loss of the star ship and that there is no evidence to support her claims of contact with a hostile xenomorph. Even worse, Ripley learns that the planet LV426 where the Alien was first encountered has been renamed Asheron and is now home to a colony of terraformers. The Weyland-Yutani Company is behind the colonisation and has entrusted a man called Burke (Paul Reiser) to extract information from Ripley.

When Gateway station loses contact with the colony on Asheron (LV426), the Company begins to take notice of Ripley's bizarre claims of a hostile alien life form that has acid for blood and two mouths (!). With a little effort, Burke and a marine, Lt Gorman (William Hope), Ripley is persuaded to return to LV426 with an investigation team (made up of bad ass space marines) solely in the role of advisor. When the team arrive at the colony, the film really kicks into overdrive.

The marines are all individuals with their own mannerisms and personalities and the actors playing them all deliver sterling performances (most notable are Bill Paxton as Private Hudson and Jeanette Goldstein as the hard as nails Vasquez). Cue the arrival of the marines at an eerily quite base, no sign of any of the colonists. What comes in the following 45 minutes is some of the best cinema ever filmed - awesome fire fights, groundbreaking visual effects and more tension than Rick Waller's mattress. There is a little sentimentality thrown in for good measure in the form of Newt (Carrie Henn) - a young girl who has been orphaned by the Aliens, who I suppose is assort of daughter figure for Ripley to look out for (in the Special Edition we are treated to a scene early on in the film where Ripley is told that her daughter has died of old age on Earth while Ripley drifted for 57 years through space in the Nostromo life boat, Narcissus).

Aliens is a stunning movie and won several awards including two Oscars (SFX editing and Visual Effects) and also launched the careers of Bill Paxton and others in the cast to star status. If you want a gripping plot, character development, sentimentality, unbelievable action, horror, tension, scares and unforgettable one liners ("Game over, man!"), then look no further than Aliens. Definitely one of the greatest action/sci-fi/horror movies ever produced.

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