Let's rock!!!!

Rating: Null/10 (27 June 2013)

I don't have too much to say about this film, other than it helped confirm the flavor for many an extracurricular activity I engaged in with friends. Whether it was playing games, going to a football game, going to see an entirely different movie, or grabbing a pizza, it was always "Let's rock!"
"Let's rock!" is derived from gunners in fire teams expressing their ability to lay down support fire in a fire fight. The gunner in the past was armed with an M-60 machine-gun based on the old German 88 design. "Let's rock!" means to cut loose with heavy sustained fire, or to return fire when engaging an enemy that's firing upon you. So it is that Vasquez, one of the support gunners in the platoon return's fire when the movies bad guys make themselves known.
I don't have too many criticisms of the film other than some of the miniatures don't hold up when translated to the small screen. That's a problem that's as old as Godzilla films when the Japanese monsters lost their size and weight when broadcast to homes. The majesty of the size of seeing something on the big screen adds visual weight to miniature, and when shrunken down, not everything in the shot translates. That happens here, but not always.
The characters and their presentation border on Hollywood's cliché Central Casting, but get their point across with a strong solid story. Weaver returns as Ripley, she meets up with a combination of military and company heads to discover what has happened to a colony.
If I had a criticism about this film, and I don't have many, it's firstly that Bruce Cmaeron films tend to be over the top in dramatic content. Just when you think things are settled there's another challenge to be met. Just when you think the last of the aliens has been dealt with, there's something else lurking around the corner. That works to heighten the action, but it does get predictable and wearisome after a while. Notably the same kind of film making reared its head in "Avatar", the 3D CGI ho-hum Pocahontas in space that Cameron brought to the screen a couple of years back.
The other critique that I have is more to do with Hollywood itself. Being an instrument of social mental health, Hollywood has decided that the only warfare in space that is to take place is against dumb aggressive "evil" predators like the aliens in this film, or space- Nazis. The reason that's important is because from Avatar to Star Wars to Star Trek to name-your-sci-fi franchise, we'll never see a sequel where said same colonial (US) marines will take on a group of soldiers from another space faring state, because in Hollywood social-mental- health speak, that's a taboo concept that is actively repressed. Ergo the bad guys will always be aliens or clone storm troopers from the Star Wars (and like) films. Why is that important? Well, if all mankind has to face are aliens, dangerous animals, so to speak, then why have soldiers at all in the first place?
But never mind. You're not supposed to think about that.
The film is filled with lots of raw energy and lots of solid performances for leads and support thespians. No one misses a mark. And Bruce Cameron competently helms this sci-fi space-actioner to bring us a bit of horror mixed in with some military gun fights to settled score.
Over the top in the story and action department, but tempered with likable and unlikable characters, this film will definitely entertain (it's the kind of film I want to see more of, but they don't make anymore).
Highly recommended. See it again and again.
Get your girlfriend to watch it with you...make her watch it with you and your hardcore military buddies.
Enjoy.