Believe the hype, it's a classic.

Rating: 10/10 (15 October 2001)

Aliens is in fact one of my favorite science-fiction films. I also find it hard to believe that I was also only a year old when this movie came out and strangely enough, the special effects have held up quite well since 1986.
As many of you already know, Aliens takes place 57 years after the events of the first encounter with the deadly alien. Ripley(Sigourney Weaver) is floating through space in hypersleep. Her escape pod is picked up by a deep-space salvage crew. She wakes up in a hospital where she meets Carter Burke(played with the right amount distrustworthiness by Paul Reiser) who informs Ripley about how long she has been floating in space. He also tells her that the Yutani Corporation has funded colonization of LV-426, the planet that the Nostromo(the ship from the first Alien film) landed on. Burke later shows up at Ripley's room with Lt. Gorman(William Hope) and tells her that contact has been lost with LV-426. Ripley tells them that it was the aliens had probably gotten the colonists. As her nightmares continue, she becomes convinced that the only way to end her nightmares is to go to the planet and see that the creatures are eliminated. So she goes. We next see her on the military ship, The Sulaco. She sees that many of the marines are very confident that they will succeed in their mission of exterminating the aliens. The marines include Hicks(Michael Biehn), Hudson(Bill Paxton), Vasquez(Jenette Goldstein), Sgt. Apone (Al Matthews), Drake(Mark Rolston), and an android(Lance Henriksen). They go to the planet and Ripley becomes a sort of surrogate mother to a lonely and terrified little girl named Newt(Carrie Henn). Newt tells that the aliens were in fact responsible for the disappearance of the colonists. Soon after, all hell breaks loose as each marine is picked off in the alien hive, thus leaving a only a small group of survivors.
Aliens is probably one of the best movies to come during the eighties. Sigourney Weaver deserved the Oscar for best actress. The supporting performances are great also especially Bill Paxton who plays the frightened Hudson. He is probably my favorite character in the movie. Special praise should go to director James Cameron for keeping the action slick and the tension always mounting. I also think it was pretty clever with the film editing that made it look like that hundreds of aliens were all over the place when in actuality only six costumes were used. That's pretty tight.
One gripe that I do have with the Alien films in general, are the aliens themselves which I think, are the most overlooked part of these movies. The aliens are the heart and soul of these films, but come off most of the time as just a really cool looking special effect. I'm not saying that's bad but come on the films should at least go into a little depth as to explaining what they are or where they came from. I mean, I wish a fifth alien movie or a documentary would be made that would go into depth to explain what they are or something like that.
I have been a big fan of the alien series ever since I saw this movie. I even used to collect the Alien action figures that were popular from around like 1993-1995. Surprise, surprise, I still have them, most of which are still in good condition with the exception of about two or three. I'm just saying that to show you how big a fan of Aliens I am.
Now about the other films in the series. In my opinion, Alien(1979) is probably the most overrated film in the series. Don't me wrong I liked the first film, it's just that it seems a bit dated and director Ridley Scott has made many better films since then. Alien 3(1992) has been unfairly judged as being the worst in the series. I think that happened because director David Fincher(Seven, Fight Club, The Game) was trying something new with the series and got badly criticized for it. Alien: Resurrection(1997) was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who by the way is a visual genius. Before Resurrection came out, me and my best friend would get into arguments of whether or not Resurrection would actually surpass Aliens. To our surprise, it did surpass it as far as special effects went but, we were a little disappointed with the film's story. But it's a real shame though, that Alien: Resurrection is an even more underrated movie than Alien 3.
Aliens gets an 10/10