Classic action thriller

Rating: Null/10 (17 October 2001)

Starting with an excellent scare twist this film picks up years after Ripley's first encounter with the alien. It transpires that the planet where the first alien was discovered has been populated by a science colony. Ripley is sent with a military unit to discover why the colony has lost contact with earth.
Cameron really took a risk here in following up one of the most famous sci-fi's ever. However he takes Scott's vision and expands it to bring in more terror and more plot. This situation sees more aliens, more action and introduces the sub-plot that the Government would surely be keen to capture any creature capable of killing enemies. It's a terrifying thought in itself - all the more terrifying because it is very likely to be true!
In terms of the action scenes the film tries to stay close to the atmosphere of the original and the terror of the aliens. In this it succeeds, opening up what we know about the creatures and keeping the scenes darkly lit and moody. Even though we see more of the creatures the shadows still keep the feeling of the unknown.
Weaver is good and is surrounded by several well known character actors (Biehn, Paxton, Henriksen, Reiser) but there is little room for character development. The fact that Ripley has slept while everyone she knows has died is not really investigated that much. However this is a minor complaint about a classic action movie.
It was never going to be easy to follow the original but Cameron does a good job. However where the original movie was a sci-fi horror movie this is a main stream sci-fi action movie with guns and explosions taking away from the horror.