Excellent sequel surpasses original (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (27 May 2003)

"Aliens" is an excellent sequel to "Alien", surpassing it both in action and characterisation. Director James Cameron has oomphed up the ante in thrills, scares and action but has not forgotten to create a cast of likeable (and not so likeable) individuals to whom the audience can relate.
It is nearly 57 years after Ripley (again played by Sigourney Weaver) destroyed the creature (along with her ship) in the first film. She's found floating in her escape ship, along with Jones the cat. To her horror she discovers the planet where her ill-fated crew found the alien has been colonised. When contact with the colony is mysteriously lost, she's talked into going back with a squad of trigger happy marines to investigate. They find one survivor, a frightened ten-year old child Newt (Carrie Henn), and not one alien creature but a whole nest of them....
The plot and pacing of the film is easily the best of the series. The buildup, while not as relaxed as that of "Alien", is done very well and Cameron does well to increase the horror before unleashing the aliens full-tilt. The plot further successfully expands on the themes of the original, with the aliens creating their hive within the colony complex and using the inhabitants as hosts for future spawn (something hinted at in deleted scenes in the first film). The story has an interesting Vietnam War parallel (affirmed by Cameron in an interview) with the indigenous aliens (the Vietcong) utterly confounding the technology and weaponry of the Marines (US military). More relevant today is the suggestion (through the character of Paul Reiser's Burke) of the extreme moral corruption and exploitation that can occur whenever big business intertwines with politics.

The script is also much better this time around, giving us a gallery of distinctive but plausible characters who learn and develop throughout the course of the film. This is enhanced by some very accomplished acting. It is fascinating to watch Bill Paxton's initially gung-ho, macho Hudson descend into crazed hysteria when confronted with the invincibility of his foe. Michael Biehn successfully repeats his romantic lead from "The Terminator", even if the chemistry between him and Weaver isn't quite as potent as it could be. Carrie Henn is gentle but intelligent as Newt, and Lance Henrikson is quietly convincing as sympathetic android Bishop.
The standout though is Weaver's Ripley. Fully developed from the mere cypher she was in the first film, she comes through here as being the only one able to intelligently and assertively assess the gravitas of her situation. She also forms a empathic motherly bond with the like-minded Newt. Weaver excels in conveying all of these emotions, and the final rescue and fight for her surrogate daughter is all the better because of it.
Cameron's work on the technical side of film is always superlative and this movie is no exception. There are some well-edited fight sequences between the marines and the aliens, packed with impressive special effects. The concluding showdown between Ripley and the Alien Queen is a winner.
"Aliens", in the wake of its success, would give way to a strong but deeply flawed third movie and a decidedly unmemorable fourth movie. But this first sequel was and remains the definitive entry in the series.