the second installment in the "Alien" saga is not only powerful in its visuals and genuinely thrilling, but a truly visionary science-fiction masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (27 November 2009)

Very much like "Psycho", the first "Alien" movie received some mixed reactions upon its first release. Some admired it for its ability to twist the stomachs of its audiences; others thought it was overkill and disgusting. But as with Hitchcock's film, as time went by and people caught up with the genius of the masterpiece, it was only a matter of time before a sequel was made. And the sequel, titled "Aliens" is the closest a sequel has ever come to being equal to its predecessor. This is not only a great science-fiction movie, but it's a highly entertaining and gut-wrenching thrill ride that comes second I think to "Die Hard" as the greatest action movie of all time.
In "Aliens", the sole survivor of the first movie, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has finally been picked up, still asleep in suspended animation after fifty-seven years. Many things have changed since her first encounter with the slimy parasitic monster from before. The planet from where the creature came from has been colonized. And then, not so coincidentally as Ripley soon finds out, contact is lost with the people on the planet and she will have to contend with the creatures, this time alongside a group of Marines. And just like before, it turns out to be a race against time for them to escape before the aliens, or something else, kills them.
If you want a scary movie, "Aliens" will deliver. If you want a movie with lots of buildup and tons of successive action sequences, the movie will not disappoint you either. But here's what makes it so special. It will give you what you're expecting, but what you don't expect from such a movie of such a genre is visionary creativity at its very best. It's so much more than just a scary movie. It's backed by a plot and a strong story, great characters, and the special effects and suspense is all secondary to this. Combined, it forms a masterpiece.
James Cameron who directed the picture also wrote the screenplay and it's these two elements that make "Aliens" what it is. At a certain point in the movie, Cameron does throw one scary scene after another at you, but before that, it's about developing the story with surprisingly strong characters. Each one is well-written and serves his or her purpose in the story. It's admirable again to see women in a science-fiction film not demoted to simply screaming and running away in the background. As in the first film, Sigourney Weaver's performance is the strongest accolade the movie has to boast. Michael Biehn plays very much the same character he did in Cameron's previous film "The Terminator" and he plays it just as well. There's also a great touch of Weaver's character bonding with a little girl played by Carrie Henn which in turn fleshes them out as human beings instead of just stock characters. But what I was really astounded by was the Bill Paxton character: a Marine who whines and complains and yammers throughout the whole story. The genius of Cameron's writing and Paxton's performance is that the character gripes nonstop and yet he's only irritating to the other characters and not to the audience whereas a weaker writing or performance would have done just the opposite.
I saved talking about the visuals of the movie till after the characterization because that's how they rank in importance. Visually, the movie is even better than its predecessor. I do think the movie toned down just a little too much how dangerous just one of the creatures are, but perhaps this is necessary since there are dozens of them crawling and leaping and goring throughout the story. The aliens are still very scary in all three of their stages, but they are not reduced to simply running around chasing the humans. Again, Cameron adds some great new imaginative ideas based off the lifestyle and habits of colonial insects to make these creatures even more formidable and vicious.
Some consider this movie to be even better than the first "Alien" picture. I have to disagree with that point, but it is very close between the two movies. Like the first, there are two versions: a theatrical release and the director's cut. My preference is the latter, since it opens up more imaginative scenes and fills some holes and overall completes the visionary masterpiece that James Cameron directed twenty-three years ago.