Mix Alien with a war movie, you get awesomeness

Rating: 10/10 (24 May 2013)

It would have been so easy to simply churn out another retread, as certain other horror franchises were doing at the time. Alien itself had spawned numerous rip-offs and imitators. It would take someone with a lot of guts and damn-them-all attitude to make something altogether different. Enter James Cameron, hot off his success from instant cult classic The Terminator. Fortuitously, some of his ideas for a sequel to Alien were not far off ideas producers Walter Hill and David Giler had. Hill and Giler after producing Alien, had also worked together in criminally underseen 1981 film Southern Comfort, which is similar in many ways to Aliens. Essentially, Aliens brings a Vietnam War vibe into the future, and ties it in with the Alien universe, and it makes for a perfect companionship.
Ripley is discovered by a salvage team. Upon revival, she learns she has been drifting in space for 57 years. When interviewed, her story is treated with scorn, and she learns there's more to it than simple disbelief - in the time she has been in space, the planetoid LV-426, which the Nostromo set down on, has been colonised, and 20-30 families now live there.
Her life at a low ebb, able only to get a job working in cargo docks, and suffering from post-traumatic stress, she is visited by slimy company rep Burke and Colonial Marine Corps Lieutenant Gorman, and informed contact has been lost with the colony on LV-426, and in order to take precautions, a team of Marines are being sent there, and they need Ripley onboard as adviser in case what she has been telling everyone turns out to be true. On the flight aboard the mean-looking USS Sulaco, we meet the Marines. The quiet Hicks, the loudmouthed Hudson, tough-as-nails chick Vasquez, battle-scarred Drake who the film implies has a close relationship with Vasquez, our regular hardass Sergeant Apone, the whining Ferro, Frost who doesn't care if what he's having sex with is male or female so long as it's Octurian, Spunkmeyer who no doubt was bullied a lot in school, medic Dietrich, plus two no-one notices until they die - Crowe and Wierzbowski. Then of course there's android Bishop that Ripley is naturally distrustful of. Burke comes along for the ride as company rep. Gorman is in command, but it becomes obvious that he's inexperienced, and like Alien, we see even in the future class issues - this officer is 'too good to eat with the rest of us Marines'.
While some may find all this preamble slow, those who are a little more patient will find the closer the Sulaco gets to the planet, the more a feeling of dread starts to seep in. As Ripley and the Marines are flown by dropship to the main colony complex, it's all too quiet down there, with no sign of life whatsoever. As the Marines explore inside, it becomes clear Ripley's story wasn't bogus - there are clear signs everywhere the colonists have been in conflict with lifeforms that bleed acid judging from scorched metal and melted spots. Confirmation is provided by the discovery of facehugging parasites seen stored in one compartment. Amazingly, they come across just one survivor, a young girl who calls herself Newt. When Hudson is able to detect personal data transmitters - beacons surgically implanted in every colonist to keep track of - they are seen to be grouped together in the deep levels of the atmospheric processor which makes the planet's air breathable for humans. When the Marines go in, we soon discover the fate of the colonists, and the titular creatures finally enter the fray...
...From that point on, the film becomes an intense battle for survival as the Marines find themselves on the losing side when the aliens prove far more formidable an opponent than they were expecting. Ripley, with the help of Hicks, tries to figure a way to get off the planet when an alien gets on board their dropship, causing it to crash, and do it fast as they face death at the hands of HUNDREDS of the critters, as well as annihilation when damage to the atmospheric processor causes a chain reaction that gives them four hours before the whole thing goes up in 40 megaton fireball.
While not perhaps as visually resonant as it's predecessor, it's a far better sequel than anyone could have hoped for - and indeed better than some give it credit for. This pays great respect to Alien, while going off in a different direction, combining claustrophobic horror with intense action scenes, so intense that some cinema-goers upon its 1986 release complained of feeling physically ill. James Horner's score, although a tad reminiscent of his score for Star Trek II - and with a whiff of 2001 - helps pump the adrenaline. The film's lengthy running time almost feels too short - this is a film that you never want to end. It goes further when other action films would have called it quits. The final 40-plus minutes especially never lets up, culminating in a showdown between Ripley, and a very different kind of alien which helped solve the question of what was laying all those eggs.