More Exciting than the First

Rating: 8/10 (1 April 2015)

I appreciated Alien for its good mix of the sci-fi and horror genres. While Alien made me sick to my stomach, Aliens entertained me more than it scared or shocked me. More goofy characters and more aliens makes for more fun in my book.
I really like how we don't have a firm grasp on what is reality or a dream in the first few scenes of the film since Ellen jolts awake a few times. Some of the content in the dream, however, is grounded in reality however since it is said she has slept for 57 years both in the dream and reality.
Once again, however, the entire film could have been avoided if people just listened to Ripley. There would have been no alien on the ship in the first if the crew would have agreed with Ripley's logic following protocol, and here her warning is not heeded since people now live on the planet where she encountered the alien.
What is interesting is that while the film has similar elements to the first, they are still different in little ways. For example, this film has a villain who prioritizes capturing an alien to study, but he is human in this one as opposed to the cyborg Ash in the first.
While the first film is meant to humanize Ripley, this one humanizes here even more with her effort to protect the young girl Newt. It gets to us when Newt calls Ripley "momma" at the conclusion, showing this girl acts as a surrogate child after Ripley's actual daughter died when she was in hyper sleep.
As for the rest of the film, not too many complaints. The suspense and action is great, Bill Paxton is great as a cowardly hot-head in one of his early roles, and the magnitude of the film is so much higher than the first - they practically fight an army of aliens instead of just one, and I love a good action film that ups the stakes.