Two Mothers of a Different Kind

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2006)

So many sequels fail because they re-hash the same story and bring nothing new to the premises. James Cameron, however, decided that instead of going for a more amped-up repetition of the horror in ALIEN, he decided to reverse the situation, constrict the action to almost claustrophobic levels, and show not one but an entire colony of those nasty aliens, complete with a gigantic Queen. ALIENS is not a horror film but an all-out war movie that also manages to show how we as a race are as opportunistic as we can be. Where ALIEN implied the notion that the crew of the Nostromo was only bait to lure this elusive but highly efficient species out for genetic manipulation, ALIENS takes the premise to extreme lengths. Even then it retains credibility since it has become common knowledge how the powers of the world create their own viruses and play God to unsuspecting humans. However, this is not an existential film but a non-stop thrill-ride filled with three fully fleshed out females stealing the light out from their emasculated male counterparts (played by Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton). Newt (Carrie Henn) is the little girl who witness the destruction of her own security, and who regresses to an animal state in order to survive -- she is able to play the aliens game blow by blow even when her death is omniscient at every turn. Ripley, more of an unwilling survivor of the first movie, is now a rage-induced fury of a woman who will stop at nothing to ensure this species never procreates and sustains one of the most memorable (and symbolic) fight sequences against the Queen as both try to save their own daughters -- Ripley her surrogate Newt, the Queen her entire colony. Private Vasquez (Jenette Goldman), though a little under-written here and there, has as of yet been the only female to body slam an alien punch to punch.
Nominated for 7 Academy Awards including Best Actress for Signourney Weaver, ALIENS is an excellent follow-up to its first movie and one of the best action films of the 80s. It would be followed by David Fincher's much hated but debut film ALIENS 3.