Revving up the action without sacrificing the story

Rating: 8/10 (6 November 2008)

Ridley Scott's "Alien" was an eerie science-fiction masterpiece that perfectly captured a haunting feeling of space and redefined "intelligent life." Then comes time for a sequel and James Cameron, 80s action extraordinare, takes the reigns. Conflicting visions? You'd think, but somehow Cameron is able to increase the explosions without frying what made its predecessor so successful.
Part of that success is the strength of Sigourney Weaver as the courageous Ellen Ripley, the best sci-fi heroine in cinematic history. This time, Ripley is awoken from hypersleep over 50 years after her first encounter with the Alien to find that the planet it was discovered on has been colonized by humans and those humans have suddenly lost contact. Ripley is asked to aide a team of space marines to check on the colonists and what they find are, well, Aliens. Lots of them.
Cameron makes sure that the sequel continues Ripley's story, portraying her yet again as being doubted by others and having to correct the life-threatening mistakes they make. She continues to captivate viewers because she reacts naturally to scary situations but then chooses to act courageously.
Then, Cameron adds plenty extra guns, flame-throwers, grenades, Alien goo and more. It's almost overkill how much stuff explodes in this film and yet it never loses credibility with its audience because of the believability of the characters' struggle for survival.
The plot, while a very honest follow-up to "Alien," is structured in a very deja-vu manner to that film, most obviously the idea of making you think it's over when it's not over. There are also similarities in character betrayal as Ripley is apparently the only one that thinks straight up killing the Aliens is a good idea.
"Aliens" is much more exciting and fast-paced than the original, though the original still one-ups it with its strong, resonant themes about space and life. This film continues those themes but doesn't add to them like a brilliant sequel does. It instead chooses to honor the strength of the original while pumping up the special effects, which are truly grandiose and stunning.