Better than the original?

Rating: 6/10 (9 November 2000)

WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Aliens, the revisionist, formulaic sequel by James Cameron was the most successful in terms of audience appeal, if not in gross, and sparked off the mass franchise series we know today.
The extra 17 minutes of the extended video release are actually quite vital, showing the fenced-in crew setting up computer sentries, emphasising the dire nature of their circumstance. Even more significantly, they added depth to Ripley by showing that her daughter had aged and died during the time she had been away. For Aliens takes place fifty-seven years later, where the shuttlecraft of the original (expertly recreated, even down to a look-alike cat) is picked up by scavengers. Once back on Earth, Ripley is emotionally blackmailed into taking a group of space marines out to the planet where they discovered the aliens, as it is now populated by a colony. The planet of the original is named as LV426, and the year the colonists inhabited the planet as 79. But which '79? For the sake of keeping it contemporary, let's assume it's 2079. Aliens takes place 20 years after colonisation, thus dating Alien at 2042. (Okay, I'm an anorak!)
While looked upon as the most action-packed, a single shot isn't fired before the first 43 minutes are up. But from then on it's pretty gung-ho all the way, Aliens getting shot in the brains, etc. All the characters are known only by their ciphers  sorry, surnames  so that the rather sleazy, back-stabbing government official (who it's obvious is a traitor from the first minute), is named "Burke", and the most macho soldier "Spunkmeyer". Cameron even tried to unite this series with The Terminator, having Cyberdene responsible for the creation of the "synthetics". He bottled it, and changed it to "Hyperdene". Weaver plays Ellen, lest we forget, though introduces herself as "Ripley" to all, including the frightened Newt. Henn gives a good performance as the orphaned girl, along with Biehn and the underused Henriksen. The rest, though, are merely juvenile military types, ready to get blown away. And that's basically it. The crew never become real people, save for perhaps Biehn, as they are all stereotypical macho types, including the women.
Cameron's direction is adequate, though the use of fades is a little obvious. Effects are obviously an improvement, this being seven years later in filmic terms, though shots of the actors in front of large explosions are notably fake. For its time, Aliens was state-of-the-art, but now it has been surpassed by others (including, ironically, Cameron's own later work), it must be judged on other merits. And that is where the problem lies. For away from the dumbed-down action and non-realism of the plot, there is little to recommend it. And surely Ripley would have been torn apart by the lack of air pressure at the climax? So that's Aliens, then. Good, nonsense, shoot-'em-up, just like the video games. But little else. Better than the original? I don't think so. Though Ripley does get bigger pants. 6/10.