...at least it doesn't star Arnold Schwarzenegger

Rating: 3/10 (2 November 2010)

The sequel to Ridley Scott's repugnant (but memorable) sci-fi monster movie is nothing more than slick, professional, high intensity trash, with Sigourney Weaver reprising her role as the indomitable sole survivor of the earlier expedition. Here she returns to the planet of her nightmares with a company of marines assigned to exterminate the growing colony of voracious aliens, but unlike in the eerie, otherworldly original the emphasis now is strictly on cheap thrills: military firepower vs. insect acid slime. Writer director James Cameron clearly knows how to manipulate his audience: each shock is delivered on cue at a furious and exhausting pace, and every visceral effect (not to mention every line of formula dialogue) has been calculated to guarantee the proper response, whether laughter or revulsion or (says Weaver to alien threatening small child: "get away from her, you bitch!") a rousing cheer. The end result may be short on brains, but packs plenty of muscle; a lot of summer moviegoers apparently don't expect anything more.