James Cameron's Action Packed Follow-Up To Alien

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2018)

What makes each Alien film interesting to watch is the series' tradition of going in a completely different direction with each installment. Aliens, arguably, is of greater influence to the series than the original Alien. Whereas Alien provided the foundations - the Alien design and biology, the greedy Weyland-Yutani corporation trying to exploit it - Aliens does a lot of world building and greatly expands the series' lore. Looking at the vast swath of expanded universe comics, books and video games, most are more closely based on Aliens than Alien, featuring Alien Hives, Colonial Marines and of course the vicious Queen, arguably James Cameron's most important contribution to the Alien universe.
In some ways, Aliens's approach as a sequel is somewhat simplistic. Think one Alien is bad? Here's a whole nest of them, along with a bigger, badder leader to sweeten the deal. But as with the original, the brilliance lies not in the concept itself, but in the execution. Where Ridley Scott turned B-list material into an A-list classic, James Cameron turned Aliens from what could have been a run-of-the-mill 80s sci-fi/action romp into an epic action adventure that definitely deserves to be listed as one of the cinematic highlights of the decade.
Having survived Alien, Sigourney Weaver's Ripley is now the relentless Alien slayer she has become known as, although Cameron and Weaver never forget to remind us that she is still human, vulnerable both physically and psychologically as she deals with her trauma from the first film, as well as the loss of her daughter, who passed away while she drifted through space for 57 years. Being 'marooned in time', torn away from her familiar surroundings and essentially an outsider in a hostile new world, would - despite the revolving cast of writers and directors as the series progressed - become a recurring theme in the series. Cameron takes a great risk in introducing a child - Newt - into the fray. Generally, putting a child in danger in an adult story is a cheap way to raise the stakes, liable to bog down the seriousness of the drama. It's also become a bit of a cliche ('Jurassic Park Syndrome'). Fortunately, Weaver's connection with Carrie Henn - who never acted before or after this film, and has since become a schoolteacher, making her one-off performance here all the more impressive - helps raise the Ripley-Newt relationship to something meaningful.
The rest of the cast are fairly one-note, although the cast play that particular note very well. Highlights are the creepy, ambiguous android Bishop (played to perfection by Lance Henriksen, who has become somewhat of a fixture in the Alien expanded universe), the cowardly Hudson (played by the late Bill Paxton), everyman grunt Hicks (played by Cameron mainstay Michael Biehn) and of course the feisty Vasquez (who, in what would be quite controversial now, is played by white actress Jenette Goldstein in makeup). The everyman approach from Alien works less well with soldiers, although this may be by European bias as the military is not as much a part of everyday life here as it is in America (as in, you're far less likely to know someone in the military here).
Being more effects-heavy than the original film, Aliens looks more dated and is firmly entrenched in 80s culture and design. The Aliens themselves look a little less impressive this time around, mainly because a lot more of them had to be created for this film. I'm also not a fan of the 'ribbed' head design, created when Cameron removed the smooth skull dome because it kept cracking. The Queen more than makes up for this however, with a fearsome design that takes the best of the original creature and expands and builds on it to create a truly menacing beast. The final confrontation with Ripley goes down as one of the most memorable showdowns in cinematic history.
Aliens wouldn't be a mainstream 80s action film without that era's distinct militarism. However, unlike jingoistic one-man-army features of the time, often starring Schwarzenegger or Stallone (e.g. Commando, Rocky IV, etc), Aliens has a more critical tone when one reads between the lines. For all the military porn filling the screen in early scenes, these overconfident battle-hardened marines - 'ultimate bad-asses', as Hudson says) - get thoroughly wrecked by what are, for all intents and purposes, mere animals armed not with guns and missiles, but simply claws and teeth (and acid blood). Which serves as a fitting allegory to Vietnam, where Americans - considered, especially by themselves, to be the ultimate military force in the world - were humbled by an enemy considered far beneath them in every way. Which also goes to say that all the military power in the world doesn't hold a candle to Mother Nature.