Slam-bang sequel to "Alien" which is possibly even better than its predecessor.

Rating: 9/10 (4 January 2006)

"Aliens" is a terrific sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi shocker "Alien". This time around the director is James Cameron and unsurprisingly the emphasis has been shifted onto hardware, with a narrative that features a bunch of marines blasting aliens away with some awesome weaponry (whereas, in the earlier film, the emphasis was on jump-out-of-your-seat shock moments). In my opinion, "Aliens" is actually slightly better than its predecessor because it is more visceral and urgent, and encourages more repeat viewings. Sigourney Weaver's character has evolved very appealingly too. In "Alien" she acted like a victim and her quest was merely to escape from the whole ordeal in one piece; in "Aliens" she is physically and mentally stronger and is quite prepared to take on the aliens, comforted with the knowledge that she has beaten them once before.
57 years have elapsed since the events narrated in "Alien" (1979). The one survivor of that ordeal - Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) - has spent the intervening years in deep space hibernation aboard an escape pod from her old craft the Nostromo. She is found floating in space by a team of astronauts and awakened from her lengthy slumber. Ripley is distressed to discover that the planet LV 426 - where she and her crew-mates originally found the alien species - has been colonised while she has slept. However, communications have recently been lost with the people at the colony and there are mounting fears that they may have been attacked by another alien or aliens. A team of crack marines are readied to travel out to the colony to find out what has happened. Ripley warns them that they don't know what they're getting into, nor do they appreciate the deadliness of the foe they are going up against. Still plagued by nightmares of her previous encounter with the alien, Ripley decides that the only way to exorcise her demons is to go with the marines on this new expedition and confront the monster once again. The team have barely been on the planet five minutes before the full horror of what has taken place hits home.... only this time, rather than one alien, there are hundreds of them. Many of the marines are killed in the initial skirmish, leaving Ripley and the token survivors - plus a young girl named Newt (Carrie Henn), who lived on the colony before the aliens struck, and has somehow survived the annihilation - to defend themselves against near insurmountable odds.
"Aliens" is an exciting and frequently frightening ride and the film that, after "The Terminator", cemented Cameron's reputation as a film-maker of exciting ideas and technical chutzpah. The pace is superbly judged, with a long but worthwhile opening stretch that sets up the story and sketches in the characters, followed by about 90 minutes of non-stop suspense and drama. The actors have a ball with their macho heroics and quotable dialogue, especially Jenette Goldstein as a female marine named Vasquez who is arguably the toughest member of her unit. Cameron has always valued strong female characters in his movies, and the trio of Weaver, Henn and Goldstein really steal the show - and the action - from their male counterparts. The special effects hold up well even 20 years after the film's initial release, with convincingly scary and scaly aliens and bloody death scenes. The film builds to a now-legendary final showdown between Weaver and the mother-alien (the scene with the classic line: "Get away from her, you bitch!") and is a thrilling experience virtually every step of the way.