"Alright, I'm in".

Rating: 9/10 (1 February 2009)

For viewers who felt that the original "Alien" lacked action, this sequel provides enough for both, especially when it enters combat mode in the latter part of the story. Adrenaline junkies should find this a pretty good fix for their movie going high, still holding up well even after a couple of decades. The film does a decent job of expanding on the Alien mythos begun in the first film, where even a serious attention to detail fails to reveal what the true life cycle of the species might actually be. Not that all those questions are answered here, in fact there might even be a few more loose ends left by the time it's all over, but by then you're content enough just to catch your breath after a wild thrill ride.
The strange thing is that essentially, "Aliens" is pretty much a re-telling of the original story with enough alteration of significant plot points that you don't really notice it until well after the film is over. The whole story revolves around a brave female (Sigourney Weaver) returning to a planet (LV-426) that has lost contact with civilization due to an unknown calamity. Ripley leads a team of crew members on a hunt against an implacable and dangerous creature that winds up wiping out that entire crew, before it's finally defeated in a last ditch battle before being cast into the vacuum of space. In neither instance did it seem remotely plausible to me that a human could have survived the crushing forces of wind shear better than the much larger and stronger enemy, but one gets so caught up in the fever pitch emotion of good vs. evil that it doesn't really matter too much. We just want to see Ripley kick some monster a--!
What kind of gets lost in translation are some of the cool elements that form the back story of LV-426, a terra-formed 'shake and bake' space colony complete with it's own atmosphere processor. Those elements are only mentioned very quickly in passing, as is the nature of the unit dispatched to investigate the planet. The term Colonial Marines is only used once in the picture, but followers of the Alien saga know the term well, as they show up in any number of book and graphic novel treatments. It wouldn't be too far off the mark to say that they embody the typical fan boy concept of over the top universal soldier types complete with wise cracking banter and big guns,.... really, really big guns. But you know, I didn't hear anyone say 'Lock and Load' - or maybe I missed it.
There was even the inclusion of an android again, or as Bishop (Lance Henricksen) explained, an artificial person, a synthetic. I guess that shouldn't have surprised anyone, since the first picture established the science officer as an artificial life form. Still, the dismemberment of Bishop was much too reminiscent of Ash's demise to be original, there was just a little more of him at the end to make the save for Newt (Carrie Henn). I like Henricksen though, so I won't hold the script against him.
What was unnerving on a repeat viewing today was the role of Carter Burke as played by Paul Reiser. His portrayal worked for me back in 1986, but all I could think of now was 'Mad About You's' Paul Buchman trying to be the bad guy and it just doesn't work. But you'll be OK if you don't think Helen Hunt's husband'.
So on balance, a nice pair of thumbs up for "Aliens", a sequel that not only carries on the story from it's prequel, but actually enhances it. As the series progressed of course, the same can't be said, but we'll save that for another review.