Another overrated "classic"

Rating: 4/10 (8 October 2013)

The first Alien film is considered a classic but I didn't particularly like it. This sequel is also considered a classic and I like this one even less than the first. At least the first one had a little tension. This one is just a shoot-em-up action thriller. See Aliens, shoot Aliens. Repeat as necessary. This makes for a thriller which is not particularly thrilling. Things get rather repetitive and monotonous. The film can't surprise us, we already know what the Alien is, what it's capable of. This time there are just more of them.
The film picks up with our heroine Ellen Ripley awaking from a 57-year nap. While she was dozing a human colony has been established on the planet where she encountered the Alien all those years ago. In an amazingly convenient plot contrivance contact with that colony is lost soon after Ripley wakes up. Gee, what could have happened? A reluctant Ripley is sent back out into space with a team of Colonial Marines to investigate. These Marines are, by and large, idiots. They get to the colony. Surprise, nobody's there! Oh wait, they do find one survivor, a little girl who spends the rest of the movie screeching "Ripley!" at the top of her lungs in exceedingly annoying fashion. Speaking of annoying the most idiotic of the idiotic Marines is Pvt. Hudson, played in excruciatingly terrible fashion by Bill Paxton. With this character we're talking Jar Jar Binks levels of annoying. Just shut up. Please. Every time this guy opens his mouth you dearly wish an Alien would turn up and devour him.
In the first film Ripley was not the only character you cared about. There the rest of the crew, with one notable exception, were sympathetic figures as well. No such luck here. There's one guy, Corporal Hicks, who comes off reasonably well. The rest are a collection of morons, jerks and slimeballs. With an incredibly annoying child thrown in to boot. Sigourney Weaver does the best she can, turning in a solid performance as Ripley. But she gets precious little help. Michael Biehn is pretty good as Hicks and Lance Henriksen has some good moments as an android but everyone else is quite terrible. Paxton goes way beyond terrible, he is truly wretched. The story, such as it is, doesn't thrill you. The movie takes its sweet time getting to the Alien planet and once we get there it's just a shooting gallery. Aliens attack, they get shot. More Aliens attack, they get shot. More Aliens attack, they get shot. Eventually we come to the big finish. Here the movie does have some surprises for you if you haven't already lost interest. But ultimately this ending, like everything which precedes it, falls flat. The climactic battle is visually impressive but really quite silly. Honestly you can say that about the film as a whole. It looks good but the story is a dud. Genuine frightful moments are very few and far between. Suspense is sorely lacking. Characters say and do some of the stupidest things. And an Alien apparently knows how to work an elevator. Going up? No, this movie is going down, crash-landing with a thud.