Cameron's second best, and one of the very best science fiction films to date

Rating: 8/10 (14 October 1999)

Aliens is absolutely one of the very best best sci-fi movies out there. And Cameron shows the audience one of his very best talents when it comes to directing: To, without any exceptions whatsoever, instantly keep up the level of excitement and fear. In some parts, it's a very predictable piece of film. Even when Ripley says something like "I said no! I will not go there!", you still know that she will, and you're not too surprised when Newt, of course, is the only one who gets caught by those slimy b***ards, but still make it. It feels like a cliche, but naturally everyone would hate the movie if she died. Including me. But not all things are predictable, you don't know when the humans will meet the aliens for the first time, and you don't know when they will come through the barricades. The fact that they came from above was just as logical as intelligent. I recently saw Aliens Special Edition, and that was really a lot better then the cinema-shown version. I can't believe why so much was cut out of that one. Personally, I think Aliens is Cameron's second best work so far. And a certain very well known three-hour ocean epic is in the lead. Terminator and it's superior sequel were a bit weaker, but still very good. As a matter of fact, James Cameron has only made two big mistakes in his career: 1) The directing of Piranha II: The Spawning (I haven't seen that one, but you don't need to see it to know it's crap) and 2) Writing parts of the script to Rambo: First Blood Part II (which by my opinion is one of the very worst films ever made). But he should be forgiven for these, that was just the beginning of his career... Aliens receives an 8 out of 10 from me.