Pathetic Rehash of the First

Rating: 6/10 (4 August 2007)

After being extremely impressed with Alien, I'll admit I was a bit skeptical as to how anyone could top it. For better or worse, I had seen and hated The Terminator and T2 so already I didn't think much of Cameron. His plots are riddled with holes and he populates his films with irritating characters. About forty five minutes into Aliens I was rooting for the aliens. Here are my specific problems with the film:
1. Newt: She serves absolutely no purpose in the movie except as a half-a**ed attempt by Cameron to get us to sympathize with Ripley since she's missed her daughter's life. Now there was definitely potential here except that Newt uttered one of two lines the whole movie: "Ripley!!!!!" and a scream that sounded like a high pitched test pattern.
2. Bill Paxton: I like the guy as an actor in other movies. However, it was almost like Cameron's direction to him went as follows: "Be as annoying as possible and make sure to say 'man' to let everyone know you just finished a sentence." When his character died (far too late into the movie), it was akin to the joy I felt when I got over pneumonia.
3. The plot: I remember asking myself "what the hell is this? Isn't this just the same plot as the first one with worse acting?" Sure enough, it was. Let's compare (SPOILER FOR ALIEN AND ALIENS):
Alien: people in space have to go to a planet to check out a problem. Things are not as they appear and the alien hitches a ride aboard the spaceship after a face hugger clamps on to a crew member. It kills the crew members one by one as they try in vain to kill it. Then it's discovered that the company just wants the alien as a biological weapon. One of the crew members is in on the whole thing and tries to stop everyone from killing it. Doesn't work out though. Ripley, the only one left except for the cat, thinks she's killed the alien and flies away in the escape craft. Turns out the alien followed her onto the escape ship. Ripley ends up launching it out of the airlock. She goes to sleep in the hibernation chamber.
Aliens: people in space need to check out a problem ON THE SAME PLANET AS THE FIRST ONE WHERE FOR YEARS THEY SOMEHOW NEVER NOTICED THE GIANT CRASHED ALIEN SPACECRAFT RIGHT NEXT TO THEIR COLONY. A face hugger latches on to one of the people in the colony and eventually everyone dies. Marines show up. The aliens kill the marines one by one. Turns out that once again, the company has sent someone to recover the alien as a biological weapon (what are the odds?). Doesn't work out for him either. Anyway, all the useless characters die and the three survivors are forced to escape. And then, LO AND BEHOLD, THE ALIEN HAS HITCHED A RIDE ON THE SHIP. The absolute kicker comes at the end when Ripley kills the queen. How, you ask? BY LAUNCHING IT OUT OF THE AIRLOCK (more on this later). To wrap it all up, everyone goes into hibernation at the end.
How original. On to my next point:
4. The marines: When Cameron wrote dialogue for them, he must have had a big book of clichés to refer to. I know quite a few marines and none of them talk like that. And then there's the scene where they had to collect the ammunition. Are the marines in the future just overgrown kids in a daycare center? Never mind that right after the commander collects the ammo, he somehow doesn't notice that everyone has either put in another clip or pulled out another gun.
As a sub point to that, there is that reactor thing that shouldn't be ruptured (remember? That's why all the ammo was collected). When the aliens show up there are bullets flying everywhere and amazingly, no bullets penetrate the reactor thus blowing all the marines and this horrible movie to kingdom come.
5. The aliens themselves: Gone is the creepiness of the alien who adapts to its environment and transforms its victims into eggs and hosts. Instead we have an overgrown ant colony which, essentially, makes this a hollow rip-off of the 1954 movie Them! At least in Them! the ants were actually scary. The aliens in Aliens seem to have gotten much stupider since the first one.
6. Ripley's role: So they bring her along because she's the only one to have seen the alien. That would mean that they probably figured they should listen to her. Nah, that would make too much sense. Instead, they drag her halfway across the galaxy just to tell her to shut up. She could have been left out of the movie and it wouldn't have mattered.
7. The airlock scene: So the alien queen is about to be sucked out the airlock, so she grabs onto Ripley's leg. Let's pretend that the laws of physics are actually at work here. Ripley's leg should have been pulled right out of its socket. But in a movie already full of incredible idiocy, at that point, it's of little consequence.
I could go on but it's painful to try and relive this pathetic waste of film. I do have three good things to say about it though:
1. The queen looked cool. 2. Paul Reiser was the only likable character 3. Lance Henriksen was also cool, but very underused.