The very scary and absolutely thrilling sequel to Alien.

Rating: 9/10 (12 May 2007)

Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), last survivor of the ill-fated Nostromo, returns to do battle with more nasty xenomorph critters in James Cameron's blistering action-packed sequel to Alien, Ridley Scott's creepy '79 sci-fi chiller.
Fifty-seven years after her first encounter with an alien on desolate planetoid LV-426, Ripley is discovered in suspended-animation by the crew of a salvage ship (that finds her shuttle craft floating aimlessly in deep space). After discovering that her daughter is now dead, and being suspended from duty by her disbelieving company, she starts a new job as a power-loaderÂ—a far cry from her esteemed position as the member of a flight crew.
However, when the inhabitants of a terra-forming colony on LV-426 go missing, Ripley is offered her old job back (by slimy company man Burke, played by Paul Reiser), providing that she accompanies a bunch of space marines on their mission to discover what has happened.
James Cameron, director of the fantastic The Terminator two years earlier, does away with the slow-burn terror of the original movie; after setting up the basic premise of his film, it becomes a non-stop thrill ride as Ripley and the heavily armed soldiers investigate the seemingly empty settlement only to find it is infested with tons of toothy terrors.
After half of the marines are wiped out in a first encounter with the hostile ETs, and their 'drop-ship' crashes, Ripley and her team (plus a young girl named Newt who is found hiding in some air vents) try to stay alive long enough to figure a way out of their predicament.
With its brilliant cast (including The Terminator's Michael Biehn as hero Hicks, Bill Paxton as coward Hudson, and Lance Henrickson as android Bishop), top notch special effects courtesy of industry legend Stan Winston, and Cameron's breath-taking handling of the action scenes, Aliens is solid entertainment from start to finish. Even the 'director's cut', which is extended by 17 minutes, breezes by without a dull moment.
The finale, which sees Ripley protecting her surrogate daughter Newt by going head-to-head (using her power-loader, of course) with a giant alien queen is riveting stuff, and such is the overall quality of this movie I find it easy to ignore the occasional inconsistency (the acidic alien blood seems weaker in this film) or silly scene (such as Ripley successfully holding on to a ladder whilst being sucked out of an air lock with several tons of alien attached to her foot).
Aliens is fantastic escapist fun and a worthy sequel to the brilliant original.